LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



\ m^niu ^Hp}vl^¥'^^-- 
/9U 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



7i 



SHAKESPEARE'S 



HISTORY OF KING JOHN. 



INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. 



FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES. 



Rev. henry N.^HUDSON, 

professor of shakespeare in boston university. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY GINN & HEATH, 

1880. 



. :\ 



nix^r 



/ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

Henry N. Hudson, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



GiNN & Heath : 
J. S. Gushing, Printer, 16 Hawley Street, 
Boston. 



TO TEACHERS. 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. 

AS I have long been in frequent receipt of letters asking 
for advice or suggestions as to the best way of using 
Shakespeare in class, I have concluded to write out and 
print some of my thoughts on that subject. On one or two 
previous occasions, I have indeed moved the theme, but 
only, for the most part, incidentally, and in subordinate con- 
nection with other topics, never with any thing like a round 
and full exposition of it. 

And in the first place I am to remark, that in such a mat- 
ter no one can make up or describe, in detail, a method of 
teaching for another : in many points every teacher must 
strike out his or her own method ; for a method that works 
very well in one person's hands may nevertheless fail entirely 
in another's. Some general reasons or principles of method, 
together with a few practical hints of detail, is about all that 
I can undertake to give ; this too rather with a view to setting 
teachers' own minds at work in devising ways, than to mark- 
ing out any formal course of procedure. 

In the second place, here, as elsewhere, the method of 
teaching is to be shaped and suited to the particular purpose 
in hand ; on the general principle, of course, that the end 
is to point out and prescribe the means. So, if the purpose 



iv TO TEACHERS. 

be to make the pupils in our public schools Shakespearians 
in any proper sense of the term, I can mark out no practi- 
cable method for the case, because I hold the purpose itself 
to be utterly impracticable ; one that cannot possibly be 
carried out, and ought not to be, if it could. I find divers 
people talking and writing as if our boys and girls were to 
make a knowledge of Shakespeare the chief business of their 
life, and were to gain their living thereby. These have a 
sort of cant phrase current among them, about " knowing 
Shakespeare in an eminent sense " ; and they are instructing 
us that, in order to this, we must study the English language 
historically, and acquire a technical mastery of Elizabethan 
idioms. 

Now, to know Shakespeare in an eminent sense, if it means 
any thing, must mean, I take it, to become Shakespearians, 
or become eminent in the knowledge of Shakespeare ; that 
is to say, we must have such a knowledge of Shakespeare 
as can be gained only by making a special and continuous, 
or at least very frequent, study of him through many long 
years. So the people in question seem intent upon some 
plan or program of teaching whereby the pupils in our 
schools shall come out full-grown Shakespearians ; this too 
when half-a-dozen, or perhaps a dozen, of the Poet's plays 
is all they can possibly find time for studying through. And 
to this end, they would have them study the Poet's language 
historically, and so draw out largely into his social, moral, 
and mental surroundings, and ransack the literature of his 
time ; therewithal they would have their Shakespeare Grarti- 
mai's and Shakespeare Lexicons, and all the apparatus for 
training the pupils in a sort of learned verbalism, and in 
analyzing and parsing the Poet's sentences. 

Now I know of but three persons in the whole United 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. V 

States who have any just claim to be called Shakespearians, 
or who can be truly said to know Shakespeare in an eminent 
sense. Those are, of course, Mr. Grant White, Mr. Howard 
Furness, and Mr. Joseph Crosby. Beyond this goodly trio, 
I cannot name a single person in the land who is able to go 
alone, or even to stand alone, in any question of textual 
criticism or textual correction. For that is what it is to 
be a Shakespearian, And these three have become Shake- 
spearians, not by the help of any labour-saving machinery, 
such as special grammars and lexicons, but by spending many 
years of close study and hard brain-work in and around their 
author. Before reaching that point, they have not only- had 
to study all through the Poet himself, and this a great many 
times, but also to make many excursions and sojournings in 
the popular, and even the erudite authorship of his period. 
And the work has been almost, if not altogether, a pure 
labour of love with them. ' They have pursued it with im- 
passioned earnestness, as if they could find no rest for their 
souls without it. 

Well, and what do you suppose the result of all this has 
done or is doing for them in the way of making a living? 
Do you suppose they can begin to purchase their bread and 
butter, or even so much as the bread without the butter, with 
the proceeds of their great learning and accompHshments in 
that kind? No, not a bit of it ! For the necessaries of life, 
every man of them has to depend mostly, if not entirely, on 
other means. If they had nothing to feed upon but what 
their Shakespeare knowledge brings them, they would have 
mighty little use for their teeth. If you do not believe this, 
ask the men themselves : and if they tell you it is not so, 
then I will frankly own myself a naughty boy, and will do 
penance publicly for my naughtiness. For my own poor 



Vi TO TEACHERS. 

part, I know right well that I have no claim to be called a 
Shakespearian, albeit I may, perchance, have had some fool- 
ish aspirations that way. Nevertheless I will venture to say 
that Shakespeare work does more towards procuring a liveli- 
hood for me than for either of the gentlemen named. This 
is doubtless because I am far inferior to them in Shake- 
spearian acquirement and culture. Yet, if I had nothing but 
the returns of my labour in that kind to live upon, I should 
have to live a good deal more cheaply than I do. And there 
w^ould probably be no difficulty in finding persons that were 
not born till some time after my study of Shakespeare began, 
who, notwithstanding, can now outbid me altogether in any 
auction of bread-buying popularity. This, no doubt, is be- 
cause their natural gifts and fitness for the business are so 
superior to mine, that they might readily be extemporized 
into what no length of time and study could possibly educate 
me. 

In all this the three gentlemen aforesaid are, I presume, 
far from thinking they have any thing to complain of, or from 
having any disposition to complain ; and I am certainly as 
far from this as they are. It is all in course, and all just 
right, except that I have a good deal better than I deserve. 
And both they and I know very well that nothing but a love 
of the thing can carry any one through such a work ; that in 
the nature of things such pursuits have to be their own re- 
ward ; and that here, as elsewhere, " love's not love when it 
is mingled with regards that stand aloof from th' entire 
point." 

Such, then, is the course and process by which, and by 
which alone, men can come to know Shakespeare in any 
sense deserving to be called eminent. It is a process of 
close, continuous, life-long study. And, in order to know 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. Vll 

the Poet in this eminent sense, one must know a good deal 
more of him than of any thing else ; that is to say, the pur- 
suit must be something of a specialty with him ; unless his 
mind be by nature far more encyclopedic than most men's 
are. Then too, in the case of those who have reached this 
point, the process had its beginning in a deep and strong 
love of the subject : Shakespeare has been a passion with 
them, perhaps I should say the master-passion of their life : 
this was both the initiative impulse that set them a-going, 
and also the sustaining force that kept them going, in the 
work. Now such a love can hardly be wooed into life or 
made to sprout by a technical, parsing, gerund-grinding 
course of study. The proper genesis and growth of love 
are not apt to proceed in that way. A long and loving 
study may indeed produce, or go to seed in, a grammar or 
a lexicon ; but surely the grammar or the lexicon is not the 
thing to prompt or inaugurate the long and loving study. 
Or, if the study begin in that way, it will not be a study of 
the workmanship as poetry, but only, or chiefly, as the raw- 
material of lingual science ; that is to say, as a subject for 
verbal dissection and surgery. 

If, then, any teacher would have his pupils go forth from 
school knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense, he must 
shape and order his methods accordingly. What those 
methods may be, or should be, I cannot say ; but I should 
think they must be quite in the high-pressure line, and I 
more than suspect they will prove abortive, after all. And 
here I cannot forbear to remark that some few of us are so 
stuck in old-fogyism, or so fossilized, as to hold that the 
main business of people in this world is to gain an honest 
living ; and that they ought to be educated with a con- 
stant eye to that purpose. These, to be sure, look very like 



Viii TO TEACHERS. 

self-evident propositions ; axioms, or ' mere tr^iisms, which, 
nevertheless, our education seems aetermined to ignore 
entirely, and a due application of which woul<H totally revo- 
lutionize our whole educational system. / 

Now knowing Shakespeare in an eminent s€nse does not 
appear to be exactly the thing for gaining an honest Kving. 
All people but a few, a very few indeed, have, ought to 
have, must have, other things to do. I suspect tli^ one 
Shakespearian in about five millions is enough. And a vast 
majority are to get their living by hand- work, not by head- 
work ; and even with thos.e who live by head-work Sl'fjfike- 
speare can very seldom be a leading interest. He can- nowise 
be the substance or body of their mental food, but/dnly, at 
the most, as a grateful seasoning thereof. Thinking of his 
poetry may be a pleasant and helpful companion for them in 
their business, but cannot be the business itself. His divine 
voice may be a sweetening tone, yet can be but a single tone, 
and an undertone at that, in the chorus of a well-ordered 
life and a daily round of honourable toil. Of the students 
in our colleges not one in a thousand, of the pupils in our 
high schools not one in a hundred thousand, can think, or 
ought to think, of becoming Shakespearians. But most of 
them, it may be hoped, can become men and women of right 
intellectual tastes and loves, and so be capable of a pure and 
elevating pleasure in the converse of books. Surely, then, 
in the little time that can be found for studying Shakespeare, 
the teaching should be shaped to the end, not of making 
the pupils Shakespearians, but only of doing somewhat — it 
cannot be much — towards making them wiser, better, hap- 
pier men and women. 

So, in reference to school study, what is the use of this 
cant about knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense ? Why 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. ix 

talk of doing what no sane person can ever, for a moment, 
possibly think of attempting? The thing might well be 
passed by as "one of the "silliest cants that ever were canted, 
but that, as now often urged, it is of a very misleading and mis- 
chievous tendency ; like that other common folly of telling 
all our boys that they may become President of the United 
States. This is the plain and simple truth of the matter, and 
as such I am for speaking it without any sort of mincing or 
disguise. In my vocabulary, indeed, on most occasions I 
choose that a spade be simply "a spade," and not "an 
instrument for removing earth." 

This brings me to the main point, to what may be called 
the heart of my message. Since any thing worthy to be 
termed an eminent knowledge of Shakespeare cannot possi- 
bly be gained or given in school, and could not be, even if 
ten times as many hours were spent in the study as can be, 
or ouglit to be, so spent, the question comes next. What, then, 
can be done ? And my answer, in the fewest words, is this : 
The most and the best that we can hope to do, is to plant 
in the pupils, and to nurse up as far as may be, a genuine 
taste and^love for Shakespeare's poetry. The planting and 
nursing of this taste is purely a matter of culture, and not of 
acquirement : it is not properly giving the pupils knowledge ; 
it is but opening the road, and starting them on the way to 
knowledge. And such a taste, once well set in the mind, 
will be, or at least stand a good chance of being, an abiding 
principle, a prolific germ of wholesome and improving 
study : moreover it will naturally proceed till, in time, it 
comes to act as a strong elective instinct, causing the mind 
to gravitate towards what is good, and to recoil from what is 
bad : it may end in bringing, say, one in two millions to 
" know Shakespeare in an eminent sense " ; but it can hardly 



X TO TEACHERS. 

fail to be a precious and fruitful gain to many, perhaps to 
most, possibly to all. 

This I believe to be a thoroughly practicable aim. And 
as the aim itself is practicable, so there are practicable ways 
for attaining it or working towards it. What these ways are 
or may be, I can best set forth by tracing, as literally and 
distinctly as I know how, my own course of procedure in 
teaching. 

In the first place, I never have had, never will have, any 
recitations whatever ; but only what I call, simply, exercises, 
the pupils reading the author under my direction, correction, 
and explanation ; the teacher and the taught thus commun- 
ing together in the author's pages for the time being. Nor 
do I ever require, though I commonly advise, that the 
matter to be read in class be read over by the pupils in pri- 
vate before coming to the exercise. Such preparation is 
indeed well, but not necessary. I am very well satisfied by 
having the pupils hve, breathe, think, feel with the author 
while his words are on their lips and in their ears. As I 
wish to have them simply growing, or getting the food of 
growth, I do not care to have them making any conscious 
acquirement at all ; my aim thus always being to produce 
the utmost possible amount of silent effect. And I much 
prefer to have the classes rather small, never including more 
than twenty pupils ; even a somewhat smaller number is still 
better. Then, in Shakespeare, I always have the pupils read 
dramatically right round and round the class, myself calling 
the parts. When a speech is read, if the occasion seems to 
call for it, I make comments, ask questions, or have the 
pupils ask them, so as to be sure that they understand fairly 
what they are reading. That done, I call the next speech ; 
and so the reading and the talking proceed till the class-time 
is up. 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XI 

In the second place, as to the nature and scope of these 
exercises, or the parts, elements, particulars they consist of. — 
In Shakespeare, the exercise is a mixed one of reading, 
language, and character. And I make a good deal of hav- 
ing the Poet's lines read properly ; this too both for the util- 
ity of it and as a choice and refined accomplishment, and 
also because such a reading of them greatly enhances the 
pleasure of the exercise both to the readers themselves and 
to the hearers. Here, of course, such points come in as the 
right pronunciation of words, the right place and degree of 
emphasis, the right pauses and divisions of sense, the right 
tones and inflections of voice. But the particulars that make 
up good reading are too well known to need dweUing upon. 
Sufiice it to say, that in this part of the exercise my whole 
care is to have the pupils understand what they are read- 
ing, and to pronounce it so that an intelligent listener may 
understand it : that done, I rest content. But I tolerate 
nothing theatrical or declamatory or oratorical or put on for 
effect in the style of reading, and insist on a clean, clear, sim- 
ple, quiet voicing of the sense and meaning ; no strut, no 
swell, but all plain and pure ; that being my notion of ^as^e- 
ful reading. 

Touching this point, I will but add that Shakespeare is 
both the easiest and also the hardest of all authors to read 
properly, — the easiest because he is the most natural, and 
the hardest for the same reason ; and for both these reasons 
together he is the best of all authors for training people in 
the art of reading : for an art it is, and a very high one too, 
insomuch that pure and perfect reading is one of the rarest 
things in the world, as it is also one of the delightfullest. 
The best description of what it is that now occurs to me is 
in Guy Mannering, chapter 29th, where Julia Mannering writes 



Xii TO TEACHERS. 

to her friend how, of an evening, her father is wont to sweeten 
their home and its fireside by the clioice matter and the taste- 
ful manner of his reading. And so my happy Ufe — for it is 
a happy one — has litde of better happiness in it than hearing 
my own beloved pupils read Shakespeare. 

As to the language part of the exercise, this is chiefly con- 
cerned with the meaning and force of the Poet's words, but 
also enters more or less into sundry points of grammar, word- 
growth, prosody, and rhetoric, making the whole as little 
technical as possible. And I use, or aim to use, all this for 
the one sole purpose of getting the pupils to understand what 
is immediately before them ; not looking at all to any lingual 
or philological purposes lying beyond the matter directly in 
hand. And here I take the utmost care not to push the part 
of verbal comment and explanation so long or so far as to 
become dull and tedious to the pupils. For as I wish them to 
study Shakespeare, simply that they may learn to understand 
and to love his poetry itself, so I must and will have them 
take pleasure in the process ; and people are not apt to fall or 
to grow in love with things that bore them. I would much 
rather they should not fully understand his thought, or not 
take in the full sense of his lines, than that they should feel 
any thing of weariness or disgust in the study ; for the defect 
of present comprehension can easily be repaired in the future, 
but not so the disgust. If they really love the poetry, and 
find it pleasant to their souls, I'll risk the rest. 

In truth, average pupils do not need nearly so much of cate- 
chizing and explaining as many teachers are apt to suppose. 
I have known divers cases where this process was carried to 
a very inordinate and hurtful excess, the matter being all 
chopped into a fine mince-meat of items ; questions and top- 
ics being multiplied to the last degree of minuteness and 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XHl 

tenuity. Often well-nigh a hundred questions are pressed 
where there ought not to be more than one or two ; the aim 
being, apparently, to force an exhaustive grammatical study 
of tiie matter. And exhaustive of the pupil's interest and 
patience it may well prove to be. This is not studying Shake- 
speare, but merely using him as an occasion for studying 
something else. Surely, surely, such a course " is not, nor 
it cannot come to, good " : it is just the way to make pupils 
loathe the study as an intolerable bore, and wish the Poet 
had never been born. The thing to be aimed at before all 
others is, to draw and hold the pupil's mind in immediate 
contact with the poetry ; and such a multitude of mincing 
questions and comments is just a thick wedge of tiresome 
obstruction and separation driven in between the two. In 
my own teaching, my greatest fear commonly is, lest I may 
strangle and squelch the proper virtue and efficacy of the 
Poet's lines with my own incontinent catechetical and exeget- 
ical babble. 

Next, for the character part of the exercise. And here I 
have to say, at the start, that I cannot think it a good use of 
time to put pupils to the study of Shakespeare at all, until 
they have got strength and ripeness of mind enough to enter, 
at least in some fair measure, into the transpirations of char- 
acter in his persons. For this is indeed the Shakespeare of 
Shakespeare. And the process is as far as you can think 
from being a mere formal or mechanical or routine handling 
of words and phrases and figures of speech : it is nothing 
less than to hear and to see the hearts and souls of the 
persons in what they say and do ; to feel, as it were, the 
very pulse-throbs of their inner life. Herein it is that 
Shakespeare's unapproached and unaproachable mastery of 
human nature lies. Nor can I bear to have his poetry 



XIV TO TEACHERS. 

Studied merely as a curious thing standing outside of and 
apart from the common hfe of man, but as drawing directly 
into the living current of human interests, feelings, duties, 
needs, occasions. So I like to be often running the Poet's 
thoughts, and carrying the pupils with them, right out and 
home to the business and bosom of humanity about them ; 
into the follies, vices, and virtues, the meannesses and nobil- 
ities, the loves, joys, sorrows, and shames, the lapses and 
grandeurs, the disciplines, disasters, devotions, and divinities, 
of men and women as they really are in the world. For so 
the right use of his poetry is, to subserve the ends of life, 
not of talk. And if this part be rightly done, pupils will 
soon learn that "our gentle Shakespeare" is not a prodigious 
enchanter playing with sublime or grotesque imaginations for 
their amusement, but a friend and brother, all alive with the 
same heart that is in them ; and who, while he is but little 
less than an angel, is also at the same time but little more 
than themselves ; so that, beginning where his feet are, they 
can gradually rise, and keep rising, till they come to be at 
home where his great, deep, mighty intellect is. 

Such, substantially, and in some detail, is the course I 
have uniformly pursued in my Shakespeare classes. I have 
never cared to have my pupils make any show in analyzing 
and parsing the Poet's language, but I have cared much, 
very much, to have them understand and enjoy his poetry. 
Accordingly I have never touched the former at all, except 
so far as was clearly needful in order to secure the latter. 
And as the poetry was made for the purpose of being en- 
joyed, so, when I have seen the pupils enjoying it, this has 
been to me sufficient proof that they rightly understood it. 
True, I have never had, nor have I ever wanted, any availa- 
ble but cheap percentages of proficiency to set off my work : 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XV 

perhaps my pupils have seldom had any idea of what they 
were getting from the study. Very well : then it has at least 
not fostered conceit in them : so I wished to have it, so was 
glad to have it : the results I aimed at were far off in the 
future ; nor have I had any fear of those results failing to 
emerge in due time. In fact, I cleave rather fondly to the 
hope of being remembered by my pupils with some affection 
after I shall be no more ; and I know right well that the best 
fruits of the best mental planting have and must have a 
pretty long interval between the seed-time and the harvest. 

Once, indeed, and it was my very first attempt, having a 
class of highly intelhgent young ladies, I undertook to put 
them through a pretty severe drill in prosody : after endur- 
ing it awhile, they remonstrated with me, giving me to 
understand that they wanted the light and pleasure properly 
belonging to the study, and not the tediousness that ped- 
antry or mere technical learning could force into it. They 
were right ; and herein I probably learnt more from them 
than they did from me. And so teaching of Shakespeare 
has been just the happiest occupation of my life : the whole- 
somest and most tonic too ; disposing me more than any 
other to severe and earnest thought : no drudgery in it, no 
dullness about it; but "as full of spirit as the month of 
May," and joyous as Wordsworth's lark hiding himself in the 
light of morning, and 

With a soul as strong as a mountain river 
Pouring out praise to the almighty Giver. 

But now certain wise ones are telling us that this is all 
wrong ; that teaching Shakespeare in this way is making, or 
tending to make, the study "an entertainment," and so not 
the "noble study" that it ought to be; meaning, I suppose^ 



XVi ^ TO TEACHERS. 

by noble study, such a study as would bring the pupils to 
know Shakespeare in the eminent sense remarked upon 
before. What is this but to proceed in the work just as if 
the pupils were to become Shakespearians ; that is, special- 
ists in that particular line ? 

Thus they would import into this study the same false and 
vicious mode that has come to be used with the classics in 
our colleges. This mode is, to keep pegging away continu- 
ally at points of grammar and etymology, so as to leave no 
time or thought for the sense and meaning of what is read. 
Thus the classical author is used merely or mainly for the 
purpose of teaching the grammar, not the grammar for the 
purpose of understanding the author. For the practical 
upshot of such a course is, to have the student learn what 
modern linguists and grammarians have compiled, not what 
the old Greeks and Rpmans thought. This hind-first or 
hindmost-foremost process has grown to be a dreadful nui- 
sance in our practice, making the study of Greek and Latin 
inexpressibly lifeless and wearisome ; and utterly fruitless 
withal as regards real growth of mind and culture of taste. 

Some years ago, I had a talk on this subject with our late 
venerable patriarch of American letters, whose only grandson 
had then recently graduated from college. He told me he 
had gathered from the young man to what a wasteful and 
vicious extreme the thing was carried ; and he spoke in 
terms of severe censure and reprobation of the custom. And 
so I have heard how a very learned professor one day spent 
the time of a whole recitation in talking about a comma that 
had been inserted in a Greek text ; telling the class who 
inserted it, and when and why he did so ; also who had 
since accepted it, and who had since rejected it, and when 
and why ; also what eifect the insertion had, and what the 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XVll 

omission, on the sense of the passage. Now, if the students 
had all been predestined or predetermined specialists in 
Greek, this might possibly have been the right way ; but, as 
they were not so predestined or predetermined, the way was 
most certainly wrong, and a worse one could hardly have 
been taken. For the right course of study for those who are 
to be specialists in this or that pursuit is one thing ; the right 
course for those who cannot be, and have no thought of 
being, speciaHsts is a very different thing; and to transfer 
the former course to the latter class, is a most preposterous 
blunder, yes, and a most mischievous one too. 

I have lately been given to understand that some of our 
best classical teachers have become sensible of this great 
error, and have set to work to correct it in practice. I 
understand also that noble old Harvard, wise in this, as in 
many other things, is leading the return to the older and 
better way. I hope most devoutly that it is so ; for the 
.proper effect of the modern way can hardly be any other than 
to attenuate and chill and dwarf the student's better facul- 
ties. The thing, to be sure, has been done in the name of 
thoroughness ; but I believe it has proved thorough to no 
end but that of unsinewing the mind, and drying the sap out 
of it. 

But now the self-same false mode that has thus run itself 
into the ground in classical study must, it seems, be used 
in the study of EngHsh authors. For so the wise ones afore- 
said, those who are for having everybody know Shakespeare 
in an eminent sense, would, apparently, have the study en- 
nobled by continual diversions into the science of language, 
exercising the pupil's logical faculty, or rather his memory, 
with points of etymology, grammar, historical usage, &c. ; 
points that are, or may be made to appear, scientifically 



XVIU TO TEACHERS. 

demonstrable. Thus the thing they seem to have in view is 
about the same that certain positivist thinkers mean, when 
they would persuade us that no knowledge is really w^orth 
having but what stands on a basis of scientific demonstration, 
so that we not only may be certain of its truth, but cannot 
possibly be otherwise. 

So I have somewhere read of a certain mathematician who, 
on reading Pai-adise Lost, made this profound criticism, that 
" it was a very pretty piece of work, but he did not see that 
it proved any thing." But, if he had studied it in the 
modern way of studying poetry, he would have found that 
divers things might be proved from it ; as, for instance, that 
a metaphor and a simile are at bottom one and the same 
thing, differing only in form, and that the author very seldom, 
if ever, makes use of the word its. And so the singing of a 
bird does not prove any thing scientifically ; and your best 
way of getting scientific knowledge about the Httle creature 
is by dissecting him, so as to find out where the music comes 
from, and how it is made. And so, again, what good can 
the flowers growing on your mother's grave do you, unless 
you use them as things to " peep and botanize " about, like 
the "philosopher" in one of Wordsworth's poems? 

The study of Shakespeare an entertainment? Yes, to be 
sure, precisely that, if you please to call it so ; a pastime, a 
recreation, a delight. This is just what, in my notion of 
things, such a study ought to be. Why, what else should it 
be ? It is just what I have always tried my utmost, and I 
trust I may say with some little success, to make the study. 
Shakespeare's poetry, has it not a right to be to us a peren- 
nial spring of sweetness and refreshment, a thing 

Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood 
Our pastime and our happiness may grow ? 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XIX 

And so my supreme desire has been that the time spent in 
the study should be, to the pupils, brimful of quiet gladness 
and pleasantness ; and in so far as at any time it has not 
been so, just so far I have regarded my work as a sorry 
failure, and have determined to try and do better next time. 
What the dickens — I beg everybody's pardon — what can 
be the proper use of studying Shakespeare's poetry without 
enjoyment? Or do you suppose that any one can really 
delight in his poetry, without reaping therefrom the highest 
and purest benefit ? The delectation is itself the appropriate 
earnest and proof that the student is drinking in — without 
knowing it indeed, and all the better for that — just the 
truest, deepest, finest culture that any poetry can give. 
What touches the mind's heart is apt to cause pleasure ; 
what merely grubs in its outskirts and suburbs is apt to be 
tedious and dull. Assuredly, therefore, if a teacher finds 
that his or her pupils, or any of them, cannot be wooed and 
won to take pleasure in the study of Shakespeare, then either 
the teacher should forthwith go to teaching something else, 
or the pupils should be put to some other study. 

What wise and wonderful ideas our progressive oblivion 
of the past is putting into people's heads ! Why, it has 
been, from time immemorial, a settled axiom, that the proper 
aim of poetry is to please, of the highest poetry, to make 
wisdom and virtue pleasant, to crown the True and the Good 
with delight and joy. This is the very constituent of the 
poet's art ; that without which it has no adequate reason for 
being. To clothe the austere forms of truth and wisdom 
with heart-taking beauty and sweetness, is its life and law. 
But then it is only when poetry is read as poetry that it is 
bound to please. When or so far as it is studied only as 
grammar or logic, it has a perfect right to be unpleasant. 



XX TO TEACHERS. 

Of course I hold that poetry, especially Shakespeare's, ought 
to be read as poetry ; and when it is not read with pleasure, 
the right grace and profit of the reading are missed. For 
the proper instructiveness of poetry is essentially dependant 
on its pleasantness ; whereas in other forms of writing this 
order is or may be reversed. The sense or the conscience 
of what is morally good and right should indeed have a hand, 
and a prerogative hand, in shaping our pleasures ; and so, 
to be sure, it must be, else the pleasures will needs be tran- 
sient, and even the seed-time of future pains. So right- 
minded people ought to desire, and do desire, to find pleasure 
in what is right and good ; the highest pleasure in what is 
Tightest and best : nevertheless the pleasure of the thing is 
what puts its healing, purifying, regenerating virtue into act ; 
and to converse with what is in itself beautiful and good 
without tasting any pleasantness in it, is or may be a positive 
harm. 

But, indeed, our education has totally lost the idea of cul- 
ture, and consequently has thrown aside the proper methods 
of it : it makes no account of any thing but acquirement. 
And the reason seems to be somewhat as follows: — The 
process of culture is silent and unconscious, because it works 
deep in the mind ; the process of acquirement is conscious 
and loud, because its work is all on the mind's surface. 
Moreover the former is exceedingly slow, insomuch as to 
yield from day to day no audible results, and so cannot be 
made available for effect in recitation : the latter is rapid, 
yielding recitable results from hour to hour ; the effect comes 
quickly, is quickly told in recitation, and makes a splendid 
appearance, thus tickling the vanity of pupils mightily, as also 
of their loving (self-loving ?) parents. 

But then, on the other hand, the culture that you have 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. Xxi 

once got you thenceforward keep, and can nowise part with 
or lose it ; slow in coming, it comes to stay with you, and to 
be an indelible part of you : whereas your acquirement is, 
for the most part, quickly got, and as quickly lost ; for, in- 
deed, it makes no part of the mind, but merely hangs or 
sticks on its outside. So, here, the pupil just crams in study, 
disgorges in recitation, and then forgets it all, to go through 
another like round of cramming, disgorging, and forgetting. 
Thus the pulse of your acquirement is easily counted, and 
foots up superbly from day to* day ; but nobody can count 
the pulse of your culture, for it has none, at least none that 
is or can be perceived. In other words, the course of cul- 
ture is dimly marked by years ; that of acquirement is plainly 
marked by hours. 

And so no one can parse, or cares to parse, the delight he 
has in Shakespeare, for the parsing just kills the delight : the 
culture one gets from studying his poetry as poetry, he can 
nowise recite, for it is not a recitable thing, and he can tell 
you nothing about it : he can only say he loves the poetry, 
and that talking with it somehow recreates and refreshes him. 
But any one can easily learn to parse the Poet's words : what 
he gets from studying his poetry as grammar, or logic, or 
rhetoric, or prosody, this he can recite, can talk glibly about 
it ; but it stirs no love in him, has no recreation or refresh- 
ment for him at all ; none, that is, unless by touching his van- 
ity, and putting him in love with himself for the pretty show 
he makes in recitation. There is, to be sure, a way of hand- 
ling the study of Shakespeare, whereby the pupils may be led 
to take pleasure not so much in his poetry itself as in their 
own supposed knowledge and appreciation of it. That way, 
however, I just do not believe in at all ; no ! not even though 
it be the right way for bringing pupils to know Shakespeare 



XXll TO TEACHERS. 

in the eminent sense. I have myself learnt him, if I may 
claim to know him at all, in a very uneminent sense, and have 
for more than forty years been drawn onwards in the study 
purely by the natural pleasantness of his poetry ; and so I am 
content to have others do. Thus, you see, it has never been 
with me " a noble study " at all. 

Well now, our education is continually saying, in effect if 
not in words, " What is the use of pursuing such studies, or 
pursuing them in such a way, as can produce no available re- 
sults, nothing to show, from day to day ? Put away your slow 
thing, whose course is but faintly marked even by years, and 
give us the spry thing, that marks its course brilliantly by days, 
perhaps by hours. Let the clock of our progress tick loudly, 
tliat we may always know just where it is, and just where we 
are. Except we can count the pulse of your process, we will 
not believe there is any life or virtue in it. None of your 
silences for us, if you please ! " 

A few words now on another, yet nearly connected, topic, 
and I have done. — I have long thought, and the thought 
has kept strengthening with me from year to year, that our 
educational work proceeds altogether too much by recita- 
tions. Our school routine is now a steady stream of these, 
so that teachers have no time for any thing else ; the pupils 
being thus held in a continual process of alternate crammings 
and disgorgings. As part and parcel of this recitation system, 
we must have frequent examinations and exhibitions, for a 
more emphatic marking of our progress. The thing has 
grown to the height of a monstrous abuse, and is threatening 
most serious consequences. It is a huge perpetual-motion 
of forcing and high-pressure ; no possible pains being spared 
to keep the pupils intensely conscious of their proficiency, 
or of their deficiency, as the case may be : motives of pride, 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XXlll 

vanity, shame, ambition, rivalry, emulation, are constantly 
appealed to and stimulated, and the nervous system kept 
boiling-hot with them. Thus, to make the love of knowl- 
edge sprout soon enough, and grow fast and strong enough 
for our ideas, we are all the while dosing and provoking it 
with a sort of mental and moral cantharides. Surely, the 
old arguments of the rod and the ferule, as persuasives to 
diligence, were far wholesomer, yes, and far kinder too, than 
this constant application of intellectual drugs and high- 
wines : the former only made the skin tingle and smart a 
little while, and that was the end of it ; whereas the latter 
plants its pains within the very house of life, and leaves 
them rankling and festering there. So our way is, to spare 
the skin and kill the heart. 

And, if the thing is not spoiling the boys, it is at all events 
killing the girls. For, as a general rule, girls are, I take it, 
more sensitive and excitable naturally than boys, and there- 
fore more liable to have their brain and nervous system 
fatally wronged and diseased by this dreadful, this cruel, 
fomenting with unnatural stimulants and provocatives. To 
be sure, it makes them preternaturally bright and interesting 
for a while, and we think the process is working gloriously : 
but this is all because the dear creatures have come to 
blossom at a time when as yet the leaves should not have 
put forth ; and so, when the proper time arrives for them to 
be in the full bloom of womanhood, leaf, blossom, and all 
are gone, leaving them faded and withered and joyless ; and 
chronic ill health, premature old age, untimely death, are their 
lot and portion. Of course, the thing cannot fail to have the 
effect of devitalizing and demoralizing and dwarfing the 
mind itself. The bright glow in its cheeks is but the hectic 
flush of a comsumptive state. 



XXIV TO TEACHERS. 

This is no fancy-picture, no dream of a speculative imagi- 
nation : it is only too true in matter of fact ; as any one may 
see, or rather as no one can choose but see, who uses his 
eyes upon what is going on about us. Why, Massachusetts 
cannot now build asylums fast enough for her multiplying 
insane ; and, if things keep on as they are now going, the 
chances are that the whole State will in no very long tim.e 
come to be almost one continuous hospital of lunatics. All 
this proceeds naturally and in course from our restless and 
reckless insistance on forcing what is, after all, but a showy, 
barren, conceited intellectualism. But, indeed, the conse- 
quences of this thing are, some of them, too appalling to be 
so much as hinted here : I can but speak the word mother- 
hood^ — a word even more laden with tender and sacred 
meaning than womanhood. 

I have talked with a good many of our best teachers on 
this subject, never with any one who did not express a full 
concurrence with me in the opinion, that the recitation busi- 
ness is shockingly and ruinously overworked in our teaching. 
But they say they can do nothing, or at the best very little, 
to help it ; the public will have it so ; the thing has come to 
be a deep-seated chronic disease in our educational system : 
this disease has got to run its course and work itself through ; 
it is to be hoped that, when matters are at the worst, they 
will take a turn, and begin to mend : at all events, time alone 
can work out a redress of the wrong. In all this they are 
perfectly right ; so that the blame of the thing nowise rests 
with them. Neither does the blame rest ultimately with 
superintendents, supervisors,, or committee-men, where Gail 
Hamilton, in her recent book, places it : the trouble lies 
further back, in the state of the public mind itself, which has 
for a long time been industriously, incessantly, systematically. 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL. XXV 

perverted, corrupted, depraved, by plausible but shallow in- 
novators and quacks. . 

The real truth is, things have come to that pass with us, 
that parents will not believe there is or can be any real growth 
of mind in their children, unless they can see them growing 
from day to day ; whereas a growing that can be so seen is 
of course just no growing at all, but only a bloating ; which I 
believe I have said somewhere before. In this wretched 
mispersuasion, they use all possible means to foster in their 
children a morbid habit of conscious acquirement ; and a 
system of recitations, examinations, and exhibitions to keep 
the process hot and steaming, is the thing to do it. 

But I more than suspect the primitive root of the difficulty 
lies deeper still, and is just here : That, having grown into a 
secret disrelish of the old religion of our fathers, as being too 
objective in its nature, and too firm and solid in its objec- 
tiveness, to suit our taste, we have turned to an idolatry of 
intellect and knowledge ; have no faith in any thing, no love 
for any thing, but what we spin, or seem to spin, out of our 
own minds. So in the idolatry of intellect, as in other idol- 
atries, the marble statue with which it begins naturally comes, 
in process of time, to be put aside as too weighty, too ex- 
pensive, and too still, and to be replaced with a hollow and 
worthless image all made up of paper and paint. And the 
cheaper and falser the idol is, the more eagerly do the 
devotees cut and scourge themselves in the worship of it. 
Hence the prating and pretentious intellectualism which we 
pursue with such suicidal eagerness. 

I must add, that of the same family with the cant spoken 
of before is that other canting phrase now so rife among us 
about " the higher education." The lower education, yes, 
the lower, is what we want ; and if this be duly cared for, 



XXVI TO TEACHERS. 

the higher may be safely left to take care of itself. The 
latter will then come, and so it ought to come, of its own 
accord, just as fast and as far as the former finds or develops 
the individual aptitude for it ; and the attempting to give it 
regardless of such aptitude can only do what it is now doing, 
namely, spoil a great many people for all useful hand-work, 
without fitting them for any sort of head-work. 

Of course there are some studies which may, perhaps must, 
proceed more or less by recitation. But, as a perpetual show 
of mind in the young is and can be nothing but a perpetual 
sham, so I am and long have been perfectly satisfied that at 
least three-fourths of our recitations ought to be abandoned 
with all practicable speed, and be replaced by the better 
methods of our fathers, — methods that hold fast to the old 
law of what Dr. William B. Carpenter terms " unconscious 
cerebration," which is indeed the irrepealable law of all true 
mental growth and all right intellectual health. Nay, more ; 
the best results of the best thinking in the best and ripest 
heads come under the operation of the self-same law, — just 
that, and no other. 

Assuredly, therefore, the need now most urgently pressing 
upon us is, to have vastly more of growth, and vastly less of 
manufacture, in our education ; or, in other words, that the 
school be altogether more a garden, and altogether less a 
mill. And a garden, especially with the rich multitudinous 
flora of Shakespeare blooming and breathing in it, can it be, 
ought it to be, other than a pleasant and happy place ? 

The child whose love is here at least doth reap 
One precious gain, that he forgets himself. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Shakespeare as an Historian. 

SHAKESPEARE has probably done more to diffuse a 
knowledge of English history than all the historians 
put together ; our liveliest and best impressions of " merry 
England in the olden time " being generally drawn from 
his pages. Though we seldom think of referring to him as 
authority in matters of fact,, yet we are apt to make him our 
standard of old English manners and character and hfe, 
reading other historians by his light, and trying them by his 
measures, without being distinctly conscious of it. 

It scarce need be said that the Poet's labours in this kind 
are as far as possible from being the unsouled political dia- 
grams of history : they are, in the right and full sense of the 
term, dramatic revivifications of the Past, wherein the shades 
of departed things are made to live their life over again, to 
repeat themselves, as it were, under our eye ; so that they 
have an interest for us such as no mere narrative of events 
can possess. If there are any others able to give us as just 
notions, provided we read them, still there are none who 
come near him in the art of causing themselves to be read. 
And the further we push our historical researches, the more 
we are brought to recognize the substantial justness of his 
representations. Even when he makes free with chronology, 
and varies from the actual order of things, it is commonly in 
quest of something higher and better than chronological 



4 KING JOHN. 

accuracy ; and the result is in most cases favourable to right 
conceptions ; the persons and events being thereby so knit 
together in a sort of vital harmony as to be better under- 
stood than if they were ordered with literal exactness of time 
and place. He never fails to hold the mind in natural inter- 
course and sympathy with living and operative truth. Kings 
and princes and the heads of the State, it is true, figure 
prominently in his scenes ; but this is done in such a way as 
to set us face to face with the real spirit and sense of the 
people, whose claims are never sacrificed, to make an im- 
posing pageant or puppet-show of political automatons. If 
he brings in fictitious persons and events, mixing them up 
with real ones, it is that he may set forth into view those 
parts and elements and aspects of life which lie without the 
range of common history ; enshrining in representative ideal 
forms the else neglected substance of actual character. 

But the most noteworthy point in this branch of the theme 
is, that out of the materials of an entire age and nation he so 
selects and uses a few as to give a just conception of the 
whole ; all the lines and features of its life and action, its 
piety, chivalry, wisdom, policy, wit, and profligacy, being 
gathered up and wrought out in fair proportion and clear ex- 
pression. Where he deviates most from all the authorities 
known to have been consulted by him, there is a large, wise 
propriety in his deviations, sucli as might well prompt the 
conjecture of his having written from some traditionary mat- 
ter which the historians had failed to chronicle. And indeed 
some of those deviations have been remarkably verified by 
the researches of latter times ; as if the Poet had exercised a 
sort of prophetic power in his dramatic retrospections. So 
that our latest study and ripest judgment in any historical 
matter handled by him will be apt to fall in with and confirm 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

the impressions at first derived from him ; that which in the 
outset approved itself to the imagination as beautiful, in the 
end approving itself to the judgment as true. 

These remarks, however, must not be taken as in dispar- 
agement of other forms of history. It is important for us to 
know much which it was not the Poet's business to teach, 
and which if he had attempted to teach, we should probably 
learn far less from him. Nor can we be too much on our 
guard against resting in those vague general notions of the 
Past which are so often found ministering to conceit and 
flippant shallowness. For, in truth, however we may exult 
in the free soarings of the spirit beyond the bounds of time 
and sense, one foot of the solid ground of Facts, where our 
thoughts must needs be limited by the matter that feeds 
them, is worth far more than acres upon acres of cloud-land 
glory where, as there is nothing to bound the sight, because 
nothing to be seen, so a man may easily credit himself with 
"gazing into the abysses of the infinite." And perhaps the 
best way to keep off all such conceit is by holding the mind 
down to the specialties of local and particular truth. These 
specialties, however, it is not for poetry to supply ; nay, rather, 
it would cease to be poetry, should it go about to supply 
them. And it is enough that Shakespeare, in giving us what 
lay within the scope of his art, faciHtates and furthers the 
learning of that which lies out of it ; working whatever mat- 
ter he takes into a lamp to light our way through that which 
he omits. This is indeed to make the Historical Drama 
what it should be, a " concentration of history " ; setting our 
thoughts at the point where the several lines of truth con- 
verge, and from whence we may survey the field of his sub- 
ject both in its unity and its variety. 

All this is to be understood as referring specially to the 



6 KING JOHN. 

Poet's dramas in English history ; though much of it holds 
good also in regard to the Roman tragedies.* Of those 
dramas, ten in number, King John comes first in the his- 
torical order of time. And in respect of this piece the 
foregoing remarks are subject to no little abatement or quali- 
fication. As a work of art, the play has indeed considerable 
merit ; but as a piece of historical portraiture its claims may 
easily be overstated. In such a work, diplomatic or docu- 
mentary exactness is not altogether possible, nor is it even 
desirable any further than will run smooth with the conditions 
of the dramatic form. For, to be truly an historical drama, 
a work should not adhere to the literal truth of history in 

* The dramas derived from the English history, ten in number, form 
one of the most valuable of Shakespeare's works, and are partly the fruit of 
his maturest age. I say advisedly one of his works ; for the Poet evidently 
intended them to form one great whole. It is, as it were, an historical heroic 
poem in the dramatic form, of which the several plays constitute the rhapso- 
dies. The main features of the events are set forth with such fidelity ; their 
causes, and even their secret springs, are placed in so clear a light ; that we 
may gain from them a knowledge of history in all its truth ; while the living 
picture makes an impression on the imagination which can never be effaced. 
But this series of dramas is designed as the vehicle of a much higher and 
more general instruction ; it furnishes examples of the political course of 
the world, applicable to all times. This mirror of kings should be the man- 
ual of princes : from it they may learn the intrinsic dignity of their heredi- 
tary vocation ; but they will also learn the difficulties of their situation, the 
dangers of usurpation, the inevitable fall of tyranny, which buries itself 
under its attempts to obtain a firmer foundation ; lastly, the ruinous conse- 
quences of the weaknesses, errors, and crimes of kings, for whole nations, 
and many subsequent generations. Eight of thesd plays, from Richard the 
Second to Richard the Third, are linked together in uninterrupted succes- 
sions, and embrace a most eventful period of nearly a century of English 
history. The events portrayed in them not only follow each other, but are 
linked together in the closest and most exact connection ; and the cycle of 
revolts, parties, civil and foreign wars, which began with the deposition of 
Richard the Second, first ends with the accession of Henry the Seventh to 
the throne. — Schlegel. 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

such sort as to hinder the proper dramatic life ; that is, the 
laws of the Drama are here paramount to the facts of his- 
tory ; which infers that, where the two cannot stand together, 
the latter are to give way. Yet, when and so far as they are 
fairly compatible, neither ought to be sacrificed; at least, 
historical fidelity is so far essential to the perfection of the 
work. And Shakespeare's mastery of his art is especially 
apparent from the degree in which he has reconciled them. 
And the historical inferiority of King John, as will be shown 
hereafter, lies mainly in this, that, taking his other works in 
the same line as the standard, the facts of history are disre- 
garded much beyond what the laws of Art seem to require. 

Time of the Composition. 

The only extant or discovered notice of King John, till 
it appeared in the folio of 1623, is in the often-quoted list 
given by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia, 1598. So 
that all we can say with certainty is, that the play was written 
some time before that date. Various attempts have been 
made to argue the date of the writing from allusions to 
contemporary matters ; but I cannot see that those attempts 
really amount to any thing at all. On the other hand, some 
of the German critics are altogether out, when, arguing from 
the internal evidences of- style, structure of the verse, and 
tone of thought, they refer the piece to the same period of 
the author's life with The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, and 
Cymbeline. In these respects, it strikes me as having an 
intermediate cast between The Two Gentlemen of Verona 
and The Merchant of Venice. From the characteristics of 
style alone, I am quite persuaded that the play wa.i v/ritten 
some considerable time before King Henry the Fourth. It 



8 KING JOHN. 

thus synchronizes, I should say, very nearly with King Rich- 
ard the Second. The matter is well stated by Schlegel : " In 
King John the political and warlike events are dressed out 
with solemn pomp, for the very reason that they have little 
of true grandeur. ' The falsehood and selfishness of the 
monarch speak in the style of a manifesto. Conventional 
dignity is most indispensable where personal dignity is want- 
ing. Falconbridge is the witty interpreter of this language ; 
he ridicules the secret springs of politics, without disap- 
proving of them ; for he owns that he is endeavouring to 
make his fortune by similar means, and would rather be of 
the deceivers than the deceived ; there being in his view of 
the world no other choice." Schlegel thus regards the 
peculiarities, in question as growing naturally out of the 
subject ; whereas I have no scruple of referring them to 
the undergraduate state of the Poet's genius \ for in truth 
they are much the same as in several other plays where no 
such cause has been alleged. These remarks, however, 
are hardly applicable except to the first three Acts of the 
play ; in the last two we have much more of the full-grown 
Shakespeare, sure-footed and self-supporting; the hidden 
elements of character, and the subtle shapings and turnings 
of guilty thought shining out in clear transparence, or flash- 
ing forth amidst the stress of passion ; with kindlings of 
poetic and dramatic inspiration not unworthy the best work- 
manship of the Poet's middle period. 

Bale's Pageant of King John. 

Shakespeare drew the material of his other histories from 
Holinshed, and no doubt had or might have had access to 
the same source in writing King John. Yet in all the 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

others the rights of historic truth are for the most part duly 
observed. Which would seem to argue that in this case he 
not only left his usual guide, but had some special reason for 
doing so. Accordingly it appears that the fore- mentioned 
sins against history were not original with him. The whole 
plot and plan of the drama, the events and the ordering of 
them, all indeed but the poetry and character, were borrowed. 
The reign of King John was specially fruitful of doings 
such as might be made to tell against the old claims and 
usages of the Mediaeval Church. This aptness of the matter 
caused it to be early and largely used in furthering the 
great ecclesiastical revolution of the sixteenth century. 
The precise date is not known, but Bishop Bale's pageant 
of King John was probably written in the time of Edward 
the Sixth. The design of this singular performance was to 
promote the Reformation, of which Bale was a very stren- 
uous and unscrupulous supporter. Some of the leading 
events of John's reign, his disputes with the Pope, the 
sufferings of his kingdom under the interdict, the surrender 
of his crown to the Legate, and his reputed death by 
poison, are there used, or abused, in a way to suit the time 
and purpose of the writer. The historical characters are 
the King himself. Pope Innocent the Third, Pandulf, Lang- 
ton, Simon of Swinstead, and a monk called Raymundus. 
With these are mixed various allegorical personages, — 
England, who is said to be a widow. Imperial Majesty, 
Nobility, Clergy, Civil Order, Treason, Verity, and Sedition, 
the latter serving as the Jester of the piece. Thus we have 
the common material of the old Moral-plays rudely com- 
bined with some elements of the Historical Drama such as 
grew into use on the public stage forty or fifty years later. 
And the piece, though written by a bishop, teems with the 



lO KING JOHN. 

lowest ribaldry and vituperation : therewithal it is totally 
barren of any thing that can pretend to the name of poetry 
or wit ; in short, the whole thing is at once thoroughly stu- 
pid, malignant, and vile. There is no likelihood that Shake- 
speare knew any thing of Bale's pageant, as it was never 
printed till some fifty years ago, the original manuscript 
having then been lately discovered in the library of the Duke 
of Devonshire. 

Foundation of the Play. 

The Troubleso7ne Reign of John, King of England, upon 
which Shakespeare's play was founded, came from the press 
first in 1591, again in 161 1, and a third time in 1622. The 
first issue was anonymous ; the other two were put forth 
with Shakespeare's name as author; which really does noth- 
ing towards proving it to be his, as we have divers instances 
of other men's workmanship being fathered upon him. 
Steevens at one time thought it to be Shakespeare's, but 
afterwards gave it up, as well he might. Several of the Ger- 
man critics have taken the other side, arguing the point at 
great length, but with little effect. To answer their argu- 
ments were more easy than profitable ; and such answer can 
better be spared than the space it would fill, since no Eng- 
lish reader able to understand the reasoning will need it, after 
once reading the play. Coleridge indeed went so far in 1802 
as to pronounce it ''not his, yet of him"; a judgment in 
which few, I apprehend, will concur. In effect, all the Eng- 
lish critics agree that he did not write it, though scarce any 
two of them agree wjio did. 

The Ti'oublesome Reign, which is in two Parts, bears strong 
internal marks of having been written when the enthusiasm 
of the nation was wrought up to the height about the Spanish 



INTRODUCTION. 1 1 

Armada, and when the Papacy was spitting its impotent 
thunders against the throne and State of the hon-Queen. 
Abounding in spoken and acted satire and invective, the 
piece must have been hugely grateful to that national feeling 
which issued in the Reformation, and which was mightily 
strengthened afterwards by the means made use of to put the 
Reformation down. The subject was strikingly apt for the 
purpose ; which was no doubt the cause of its being chosen. 

The piece, however, is a prodigious advance upon Bale's 
performance. The most considerable exception to this is 
where Falconbridge, while by the King's order he is plunder- 
ing the religious houses, finds a fair young nun hidden in a 
chest which is supposed to contain the Abbot's treasures. 
Campbell regrets that the Poet did not retain this incident, — 
a regret in which I am far from sympathizing ; for, surely, to 
hold up the crimes of individuals in such a way or at such a 
time as to set a stigma upon whole classes of men, vv^as a 
work that might well be left to meaner hands. 

An intense hatred of Popery runs as a special purpose 
through both of the older pieces. Which matter is reformed 
altogether in Shakespeare ; who understood well enough, no 
doubt, that any such special purpose was quite inconsistent 
with the just proportions of Art. He therefore discovers no 
repugnance to Popery save in the form of a just and genuine 
patriotism ; has no particular symptoms of a Protestant spirit, 
but only the natural beatings of a sound, honest English 
heart, resolute to withstand alike all foreign encroachments, 
whether from kings or emperors or popes. Thus his feeling 
against Rome is wisely tempered in that proportion which is 
required by the laws of morality and Art, issuing in a firm, 
manly national sentiment such as all men may justly respond 
to, be their creed what it may. 



12 KING JOHN. 

So that King JoJin, as compared with the piece out of 
which it was built, yields a forcible instance and proof of the 
Poet's universality. He follows his predecessor in those 
things which appeal to the feelings of man as man, but for- 
sakes him in whatever flatters the prejudices and antipathies 
of men as belonging to this or that party or sect. And as 
aversion to Rome is chastised down from the prominence of 
a special purpose, the parts of Arthur and Constance and 
Falconbridge proportionably rise ; parts that spontaneously 
knit in with the common sympathies of humanity, — such a 
language as may always dwell together with the spirit of a 
man, and be twisted about his heart for ever. 

Still the question, recurs. Why did Shakespeare, with the 
authentic materials of history at hand, and with his own 
matchless power of shaping those materials into beautiful 
and impressive forms, — why did he, in this single instance, 
depart from his usual course, preferring a fabulous history 
to the true, and this too when, for aught now appears, the 
true would have answered his purpose just as well? It is to 
come at a probable answer to this question that I have dwelt 
so long on the two older pieces. We thus see that for spe- 
cial causes the subject was early brought upon the stage. The 
same causes long operated to keep it there. The King John 
of the stage, striking in with the passions and interests of the 
time, had become familiar to the people, and twined itself 
closely with their feelings and thoughts. A faithful version 
would have worked at great disadvantage in competition with 
the theatrical one thus established. This prepossession of the 
popular mind Shakespeare may well have judged it unwise 
to disturb. In other words, the current of popular associa- 
tion being so strong, he probably chose rather to fall in with 
it than to stem it. We may regret that he did so ; but we 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

can hardly doubt that he did it knowingly and on principle : 
nor should we so much blame him for not stemming that 
current as thank him for purifying it. 

Historic Outline. 

I will next present, as briefly as may be, so much of au- 
thentic history as will throw Hght directly on the subject. — 
Henry the Second, the first of the Plantagenet kings, had 
four sons, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, and John. Eleanor, 
his queen, was first married to Louis the Seventh of France, 
and some sixteen years after the marriage was divorced on 
suspicion of conjugal infidehty. Within six weeks after the 
divorce, she was married to Henry, then Earl of Anjou, 
and much younger than herself. She brought him large 
possessions indeed, but not enough to offset the trouble she 
caused in his family and kingdom. Unfaithful to her first 
husband, and jealous of the second, she instigated his sons 
into rebellion against him. In 1189, after a reign of thirty- 
five years, Henry died, invoking the vengeance of Heaven 
on the ingratitude of his children, and was succeeded by 
Richard, Henry and Geoffrey having died before him. 
Geoffrey, Duke of Bretagne in right of Constance his wife, 
left one son, Arthur. In 11 90, when Arthur was a mere 
child, Richard contracted him in marriage with the daughter 
of Tancred, King of Sicily, at the same time owning him as 
" our most dear nephew, and heir, if by chance we should 
die without issue." At Richard's death, however, in 1199, 
John produced a testament of his brother's, giving him the 
crown. Anjou, Touraine, and Maine were the proper patri- 
mony of the Plantagenets, and therefore devolved to Arthur 
as the acknowledged representative of that House, the rule 



14 KING JOHN. 

of lineal succession being there fully established. To the 
ducal chair of Bretagne Arthur was the proper heir in right 
of his mother, who was then Duchess-regnant of that province. 
John claimed the dukedom of Normandy, as the proper inher- 
itance from his ancestor, William the Conqueror, and his 
claim was there admitted. Poitou, Guienne, and five other 
French provinces were the inheritance of Eleanor his mother ; 
but she made over her title to him ; and there also his claim 
was recognized. The English crown he claimed in virtue of 
his brother's will, but took care to strengthen that claim by a 
parliamentary election. In the strict order of inheritance, 
all these possessions, be it observed, were due to Arthur ; 
but that order, it appears, was not then fully established, save 
in the provinces belonging to the House of Anjou. 

As Duke of Bretagne, Arthur was a vassal of France, and 
therefore bound to homage as the condition of his title. 
Constance, feeling his need of a protector, engaged to 
Philip Augustus, King of France, that he should do homage 
also for the other provinces, where his right was clogged 
with no such conditions. Philip accordingly met him at 
Mans, received his oath, gave him knighthood, and took 
him to Paris. Philip was cunning, ambitious, and unscrupu- 
lous, and his plan was to drive his own interests in Arthur's 
name : with the Prince entirely in his power, he could use 
him as an ally or a prisoner, whichever would best serve his 
turn ; and in effect " Arthur was a puppet in his hands, to be 
set up or knocked down, as he desired to bully or cajole 
John out of the territories he claimed in France." In the 
year 1200, Philip was at war witl^John in pretended mainte- 
nance of Artliur's rights ; but before the end of that year the 
war ended in a peace, by the terms of which John was to 
give his niece, Blanche of Castile, in marriage to Louis the 



INTRODUCTION. 1 5 

Dauphin, \vith a dowry of several valuable fiefs ; and Arthur 
was to hold even his own Bretagne as a vassal of John. At 
the time of this treaty Constance was still alive ; and Arthur, 
fearing, it is said, his uncle's treachery, remained in the care 
of Philip. In less than two years, however, the peace was 
broken. John, though his former wife was still living, hav- 
ing seized and married Isabella of Angouleme, already be- 
trothed to the Count de la Marche, the Count headed an 
insurrection, and Philip joined him, brought Arthur again 
upon the scene, and made him raise the flag of war against 
his uncle. For some time Philip was carrying all before 
him, till at length Arthur was sent with a small force against 
the town of Mirabeau, where his grandmother Eleanor was 
stationed ; and, while he was besieging her in the castle, 
John " used such diligence, that he was upon his enemies' 
necks ere they could understand any thing of his coming." 
His mother was quickly relieved, Arthur fell into his hands, 
and was conveyed to the castle of Falaise ; and Philip with- 
drew from the contest, as the people would have nothing to 
do with him but as the protector of their beloved Prince. 
The capture of Arthur took place in July, 1202, he being 
seventeen or eighteen years old. 

The King then betook himself to England, and had his 
coronation repeated. Shortly after, he returned to France, 
where, a rumour being spread abroad of Arthur's death, the 
nobles made great suit to have him set at liberty. Not 
prevailing in this, they banded together, and "began to 
levy sharp wars against King John in divers places, inso- 
much that it was thought there would be no quiet in those 
parts so long as Arthur lived." A charge of murder being 
then carried to the French Court, the King was summoned 
thither for trial, but refused to go ; whereupon he " was 



l6 KING JOHN. 

found guilty of felony and treason, and adjudged to forfeit 
all the lands which he held by homage." Thence sprang 
up a war in which John was totally stripped of his French 
possessions, and at last stole off with inexpressible baseness 
to England. 

The quarrel of John with Eope Innocent did not break 
out till 1207. It was about the election of Cardinal Lang- 
ton to the See of Canterbury. First came the interdict ; 
then, some two years after, the excommunication ; and 
finally, at a like interval, the deposition ; Philip being en- 
gaged to go with an army, and execute the sentence ; 
wherein he was likely to succeed, till at length, in the Spring 
of 1 2 13, John made his full submission. The next year, he 
was desperately involved in the famous contest with his 
barons, which resulted in the establishment of the -Gi-eat 
Charter. Of this great movement, so decisive for the lib- 
erties of England, Langton was the life and soul. As Pri- 
mate he had been forced upon the King by the Pope ; but 
he now stood by his country against both Pope and King. 
No sooner had John confirmed the Charter than his tyr- 
anny and perfidy broke out afresh ; whereupon the barons, 
finding that no laws nor oaths could curb the faithless and 
cruel devil within him, offered the crown to Louis the Dau- 
phin on condition of his helping them put down the hated 
tyrant. John died in 12 16. 

Breaches of History. 

The point where all the parts of King John centre and 
converge into one has been rightly stated to be the fate of 
Arthur. This is the heart, whose pulsations are felt through- 
out the entire structure. The alleged right of Arthur to the 
throne draws on the wars between Philip and John, and 



INTRODUCTION. 1 7 

finally the loss from the English crown of the provinces in 
France. And so far the drama is strictly true to historical 
fact. But, besides this, the real or reputed murder of Arthur 
by John is set forth as the main cause of the troubles which 
distracted the latter part of John's reign, and ended only with 
his life. Which was by no means the case. For though, by 
the treatment of his nephew, John did greatly outrage the 
loyalty and humanity Of the nation, still that was but one act 
in a life-long course of cruelty, cowardice, lust, and perfidy, 
which stamped him all over with baseness, and finally drew 
upon him the general hatred and execration of his subjects. 
Had he not thus sinned away and lost the hearts of the peo- 
ple, he might have safely defied the papal interdict ; for who 
can doubt that they would have braved the thunders of the 
Vatican for him, since they did not scruple afterwards to do 
so against him ? But the fact or the mode of Arthur's death 
was far from being the main cause of that loss. Pope Inno- 
cent the Third was a very great man j his proceedings against 
John were richly deserved : at that time there was no other 
power in Europe that could tame or restrain the savagery of 
such lawless and brutal oppressors ; and the Church had, by 
her services to liberty and humanity, well earned the preroga- 
tives then exercised in her name. The death of Arthur, 
though the consequences thereof survived in a general weak- 
ening of the English State, had quite ceased to be an active 
force in European politics when the ecclesiastical tempest 
broke loose upon John. 

Here, then, we have a breach of history in the very cen- 
tral point of the drama ; this too without any apparent reason 
in the laws of the dramatic form. Such a flaw at the heart 
of the piece must greatly disarrange the order of the work as 
a representation of facts, and make it very untrue to the ideas 



l8 KING JOHN. 

and sentiments of the English people at the time ; for it 
implies all along that Arthur was clearly the rightful sover- 
eign, and that he was so regarded ; whereas in truth the rule 
of lineal descent was not then settled in the State, and the 
succession of John to the throne was so far from being irreg- 
ular, that of the last five occupants four had derived their 
main title from election, — the same right whereby John him- 
self held it. 

The same objection holds proportionably against another 
feature of the play. The life of the Austrian Archduke who 
had behaved so harshly and so meanly towards Richard the 
First is prolonged five or six years beyond its actual period, 
for no other purpose, apparently, than that Richard's natural 
son may have the honour of revenging his father's wrongs 
and death. Richard fell in a quarrel with Vidomar, Viscount 
of Limoges, one of his own vassals. A treasure having been 
found on Vidomar's estate, the King refused the offer of a 
part, and insisted on having the whole ; and while, to enforce 
this claim, he was making war on the owner, he was wounded 
with an arfow by one of Vidomar's archers. This occurred 
in 1 1 99, when Leopold of Austria had been dead several 
years. The play, however, drives the sin against history to 
the extreme point of making Austria and Limoges the same 
person. Now, if such an exploit were needful for the proper 
display of Falconbridge's character, it does not well appear 
but that the real Vidomar would have answered the purpose ; 
at all events, the thing might surely have been compassed 
without so signal a breach of historical truth. Here, how- 
ever, the vice stops with itself, instead of vitiating the other 
parts, as in the former case. 

Again : In the play the people of Anglers stoutly refuse 
to own either John or Arthur as their king, until the ques- 



INTRODUCTION. I9 

tion shall have first been decided in battle between them ; 
whereas in fact Anjou, Touraine, and Maine declared for 
Arthur from the first, and did not waver at all in their 
allegiance. The drama also represents the imprisonment 
and death of Arthur as occurring in England ; while in fact 
he was first put under guard in the castle of Falaise, and 
afterwards transferred to a dungeon in the castle of Rouen, 
from whence he was never known to come out alive. These, 
however, are immaterial points in the course of the drama, 
save as the latter has the effect of bringing Arthur nearer to 
the homes and hearts of the English people ; who would 
naturally be more apt to resent his death, if it occurred at 
their own doors. Other departures from fact there are, 
which may easily be justified, as being more than made up 
by a gain of dramatic truth and effect. Such, for instance, 
are the freedoms taken with Constance, who, in the play, 
remains a widow after the death of her first husband, and 
survives to bewail the captivity of her son and the wreck 
of his hopes ; but who, in fact, after a short widowhood was 
married to Guy of Thouars, and died in 1201, the year before 
Arthur fell into the hands of his uncle. A breach of history 
every way justifiable, since it gives an occasion, not otherwise 
to be had, for some noble outpourings of maternal grief and 
tenderness. And the mother's transports of sorrow might 
well consist with a second marriage, though to have repre- 
sented her thus would have impaired the pathos of her 
situation, and at the same time have been a needless em- 
barrassment of the action. It is enough that so she would 
have felt and spoken, had she been still alive : her proper 
character being thus allowed to transpire in circumstances 
which she did not live to see. 

But, of the justifiable departures from fact, the greatest 



20 KING JOHN. 

consists in anticipating by several years the papal instigations 
as the cause of the war in which Arthur was taken prisoner. 
For in reality Rome, had no hand in setting on that war ; it 
was undertaken, as we have seen, by Philip of his own will 
and for his own ends ; there being no rupture between John 
and the Pope till some time after Arthur had disappeared. 
But the laws of dramatic effect often require that the force 
and import of divers actual events be condensed and massed 
together. To disperse the interest over many details of 
action involves such a weakening of it as poetry does not 
tolerate. So that the Poet was eminently judicious in this 
instance of xoncentration. The conditions of right dramatic 
interest clearly required something of the kind. United, the 
several events might stand in the drama ; divided, they must 
fall. Thus the course of the play in this matter was fitted 
to secure as much of actual truth as could be told dramati- 
cally without defeating the purpose of the telling. Shake- 
speare has many happy instances of such condensation in 
his historical pieces. 

Political Bearings. 

The reign of King John was specially remarkable as being 
the dawn of genuine English nationality, such as it has con- 
tinued substantially to the present day. And the faults and 
crimes of the sovereign seem to have had the effect of testing 
and so toughening the national unity ; just as certain diseases 
in infancy operate to strengthen the constitution of the man, 
and thus to prepare him for the struggles of life. England 
was then wrestled, as it were, into the beginnings of that just, 
sturdy, indomitable self-reliance, or selfhood, which she has 
ever since so gloriously maintained. 

The Poet's vigorous and healthy national spirit is strongly 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

manifested in the workmanship of King John. Falconbridge 
serves as a chorus to give a right political interpretation of 
the events and action of the play. To him, John imperson- 
• ates the unity and majesty of the nation ; so that defection 
from him tends to nothing less than national dissolution. 
Whatever he may be as a man, as King Patriotism has no 
way but to stand by him at all hazards ; for the rights and 
interests of England are inseparably bound up with the rever- 
ence of his person and the maintenance of his title. The 
crimes of the individual must not be allowed to peril the 
independence and life of the nation. Thus, in Falcon- 
bridge's view, England can only rest true to herself by stick- 
ing to the King against all comers whatsoever. And such, 
undoubtedly, is the right idea of the English State, and of 
the relation which the Crown bears to the other parts of her 
political Constitution. No philosophy or statesmanship lias 
got beyond Shakespeare in the mastery of this principle. 
And this principle is the moral backbone of the drama, how- 
ever \h& poetry of it may turn upon other points. 

As for the politics of the piece, these present a rather 
tangled and intricate complication, which it would hardly 
pay to trace out in detail; at least, the doing so would 
strike something too wide of my usual method and purpose 
in these discourses. Besides, the ground in this respect is 
well covered by Gervinus, who has worked through the 
process with great ability indeed, though, as it seems to me, 
at a rather unconscionable length.* 

*'Here is a brief portion: "John, imprudent once in resting on false 
supports, is so now in the wicked removal of weak enemies, and in the dan- 
gerous provocation of strong opposition. He contrives the murder of the 
harmless Arthur, and irritates the already-disturbed Church by fresh extor- 
tions. The legate Pandulf, a master of Machiavelian policy, watches these 



22 KING JOHN. 

The characterization of King John corresponds very well, 
in the degree of excellence, with the period to which I have 
on other grounds assigned the writing. Much of it, and 
indeed nearly all, at least in the germs and outlines, was 
taken from The Troublesome Reign; and the use of the 
borrowed matter discovers a mark-worthy exercise of judg- 
ment in much retrenching of superfluities, in not a little 
moral purging and refining, in skilful recasting of features, 
and in many ennobling additions. 

The dehneation of the English barons is made to reflect 
the tumultuous and distracted condition of the time, when 
the best men were inwardly divided and fluctuating be- 
tween the claims of parliamentary election and actual pos- 
session on the one side, and the rights of lineal succession 
on the other. In such a conflict of duties and motives, the 

errors, and builds upon them the new unhallowed league between France 
and Rome ; with cold blood he speculates how Arthur's death may be oc- 
casioned by a French invasion, and this again may be advanced by the 
accusation produced by the murder. This practical prophecy is fulfilled : 
the country becomes unruly : the King's evil conscience is roused ; sus- 
piciously he has himself crowned a second time, and this makes his nobles 
suspicious also. The murder of Arthur comes to their hearing; they revolt 
from the King. A new antinational league is formed between the English 
vassals on the one side and France and the Pope on the other ; and the 
French Dauphin prepares on his part a treacherous death for the traitors to 
England. Meanwhile the fearful and perplexed John loses his old courage 
and confidence so far, that he takes his land as a fief from the Pope, and 
enters into a shameful treaty of subjection to the most virulent of his ene- 
mies. The King has forgotten his former vigour, which the enemy has now 
learned from him ; he turns his hardened zeal against poor prophets, only 
to benumb his superstitious fear ; his energy is gone. The unnaturalness 
of all these complicated alliances is now speedily manifested ; the league 
between England and the Papacy, that between the Papacy and France, 
that between France and the English vassals, all are are broken up, without 
attaining the object of one of them : they change throughout into the natural 
enmity which several interests necessitate," 



INTRODUCTION. 2^ 

moral sense often drawing sharply .at odds with urgent politi- 
cal considerations, the clearest heads and most upright hearts 
are apt to lose their way ; nor perhaps is it much to be won- 
dered at if in such a state of things self-interest, the one con- 
stant motive of human action, gain such headway at last as 
to swamp all other regards. The noble and virtuous Salis- 
bury successfully resists this depraving tendency indeed, yet 
the thorns and dangers of the time prove too much for his 
judgment. From the outset he is divided between alle- 
giance to John and to Arthur, till the crimes and cruelties 
of the former throw him quite over to the side of the latter. 
Humanity outwrestles nationality in his breast, and this even 
to the sacrifice of humanity itself, as matters turn ■ his scru- 
pulous preference of moral to prudential regards draws him 
into serious error ; which, to be sure, his rectitude of pur- 
pose is prompt to retrace, but not till the mistake has nearly 
crippled his power for good. His course well illustrates the 
peril to which goodness, more sensitive than far-sighted, is 
exposed in such a hard tussle of antagonist principles. In 
the practical exigencies of life, doing the best we can for 
those who stand nearest us is often nobler than living up to 
our own ideal. So there are times when men must set up 
their rest to stand by their country, right or wrong, and not 
allow any faults of her rulers to alienate them from her cause. 
Sometimes the highest sacrifice which Providence requires 
of us is that of our finer moral feelings, nay, even of our 
sense of duty itself, to the rough occasions of patriotism. 
Is it that our own salvation may even depend on wilHngness 
to be lost for the saving of others ? All this is rarely exem- 
pHfied in Salisbury, who, by the way, was the famous William 
Longsword, natural son to Henry the Second, and so half- 
brother to John. It is considerable that our better feelings 



24 KING JOHN. 

Stay with him even when the more reckless spirit and coarse 
nature of Falconbridge carry off our judgment. 

Character of John. 

The King, as he stands in authentic history, was such a 
piece of irredeemable depravity, so thoroughly weak-headed, 
rotten-hearted, and bloody-handed, that to set him forth 
truly without seeming to be dealing in caricature or lampoon, 
required no little art. The Poet was under the necessity, in 
some sort, of leaving his qualities to be inferred, instead of 
showing them directly : the point was, to disguise his mean- 
Tiesses, and yet so to order the disguise as to suggest that it 
covered something too vile to be seen. And what could 
better infer his slinking, cowardly, malignant spirit, than his 
two scenes with Hubert? Here he has neither the boldness 
to look his purpose in the face, nor the rectitude to dismiss 
it ; so he has no way but to " dodge and palter in the shifts 
of lowness " : he tries by hints and fawning innuendoes to 
secure the passage of his thought into effect, without com- 
mitting himself to any responsibility for it; and wants 
another to be the agent of his will, and yet bear the blame 
as if acting of his own accord. And afterwards, when the 
consequences begin to press upon him, he accuses the aptness 
of the instrument as the cause of his suggestion ; and the 
only sagacity he displays is in shirking the responsibility of 
his own guilty purpose ; his sneaking, selfish fear inspiring 
him with a quickness and fertility of thought far beyond his 
capacity under any nobler influences. 

The chief trouble with John in the play is, that he con- 
ceives himself in a false position, and so becomes himself 
false to his position in the hope of thereby rendering it 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

secure. He has indeed far better reasons for holding the 
throne than he is himself aware of, and the utter selfishness 
of his aims is what keeps him from seeing them. His soul 
is so bemired in personal regards, that he cannot rise to any 
considerations of patriotism or public spirit. The idea of 
wearing the crown as a sacred trust from the nation never 
once enters his head. And this is all because he lacks the 
nobleness to rest his title on national grounds ; or because 
he is himself too lawless of spirit to feel the majesty with 
which the national law has invested him. As the interest 
and honour of England have no place in his thoughts, so he 
feels as if he had stolen the throne, and appropriated it to 
his own private use. This consciousness of bad motives 
naturally fills him with dark suspicions and sinister designs. 
As he is without the inward strength of noble aims, so he 
does not feel outwardly strong ; his bad motives put him 
upon using means as bad for securing himself; and he can 
think of no way to clinch his tenure but by meanness and 
wrong. Thus his sense of inherent baseness has the effect 
of casting him into disgraces and crimes ; his very stings 
of self-reproach driving him on from bad to worse. If he 
had the manhood to trust his cause frankly with the nation^ 
as rightly comprehending his trust, he would be strong in 
the nation's support ; but this he is too mean to see. 

Nor is John less wanting in manly fortitude than in moral 
principle : he has not the courage even to be daringly and 
resolutely wicked ; that is, there is no backbone of truth in 
him either for good or for evil. Insolent, heart-swollen, 
defiant under success, be becomes utterly abject and cring- 
ing in disaster or reverse. " Even so doth valour's show 
and valour's worth divide in storms of fortune." When 
his wishes are crowned, he struts and talks big j but a slight 



26 KING JOHN. 

whirl in the wind of chance at once twists him off his pins 
and lays him sprawling in the mud. That his seeming great- 
ness is but the distention of gas, appears in that the touch 
of pain or loss soon pricks him into an utter collapse. So 
that we may almost apply to him what Ulysses says of 
Achilles in Troilus and Cressida : 

Possess'd he is with greatness ; 
And speaks not to himself, but with a pride 
That quarrels at self-breath : imagined worth 
Holds in his blood such swoln and hot discourse, 
That 'twixt his mental and his active parts 
Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages, 
And batters down himself. 

And as, in his craven-hearted selfishness, John cares nothing 
for England's honour, nor even for his own as king, but only 
to retain the spoil of his self-imputed trespass ; so he will at 
any time trade that honour away, and will not mind eating 
dirt to the King of France or to the Pope, so he may keep 
his place. 

All this was no doubt partly owing to the demoralizing 
influences of the time. And how deeply those influences 
worked is well shown in the hoary-headed fraud and heart- 
lessness of priestcraft as represented in Cardinal Pandulf; 
who makes it his special business to abuse the highest fac- 
ulties to the most refined ill purposes ; with subtle and tor- 
tuous casuistry explaining away perfidy, treachery, and mur- 
der into works of righteousness. The arts of deceit could 
hardly have come to be used with such unctious self-approval, 
but from a long discipline of civihzed selfishness in endeav- 
ouring to prevent or to parry the assaults of violence and bar- 
barism. For, in a state of continual danger and insecurity, 
cultivated intelligence is naturally drawn to defend itself by 



INTRODUCTION. 2/ 

subtlety and craft. The ethereal weapons of reason and 
sanctity are powerless upon men stupefied by brutal passions ; 
and this is too apt to generate even in "the best characters a 
habit of seeking safety by ''bowing their gray dissimulation" 
into whatever causes they take in hand, \yhich, I suspect, 
would go far to explain the alleged system of "pious frauds " 
once so little scrupled in the walks of religion and learning. 
Be this as it may, there was, it seems, virtue enough in the 
England of King John to bring her safe and sound through 
the vast perils and corruptions of the time. That reign was 
in truth the seed-bed of those forces which have since made 
England so great and wise and free. 

All through the reigns of Henry the Seventh and Henry 
the Eighth, the lately-experienced horrors of civil slaughter 
in the York and Lancaster wars made the English people 
nervously apprehensive as to the consequences of a disputed 
title to the throne. This apprehension had by no means 
worn off in Shakespeare's time : the nation was still extremely 
tenacious of the lineal succession, as the only practicable 
safeguard against the danger of rival claimants. The dogma 
of the divine right, which then got such headway, was proba- 
bly more or less the offspring of this sentiment. It has often 
seemed to me that the Poet, in his sympathy with this strong 
national feeling, was swayed somewhat from the strict line of 
historic truth and reason, in ascribing John's crimes and fol- 
lies, and the evils of his reign, so much to a public distrust 
of his title. I question whether such distrust really had any 
considerable hand in those evils. The King's title was gener- 
ally held at the time to be every way sound and clear. The 
nervous dread of a disputed succession was mainly the growth 
of later experience, and then was putatively transferred to a 



28 KING JOHN. 

time when, in fact, it had been httle felt. And the anxiety 
to fence off the evils so dreaded naturally caused the powers 
of the Crown to be strained up to a pitch hardly compatible 
with any degree of freedom ; insomuch that in no long time 
another civil war became necessary, to keep the liberties of 
England from being swallowed up in the Serbonian bog 
of royal prerogative. In the apprehension of an experienced 
danger on one side, men comparatively lost sight of an equal 
danger on the other side. 

Constance. 

I suspect that the genius and art of Mrs. Siddons caused 
the critics of her time and their immediate successors to set 
a higher estimate upon the delineation of Constance than is 
fully justified by the work itself. The part seems indeed to 
have been peculiarly suited to the powers of that remarkable 
actress ; the wide range of moods, and the tugging conflicts 
of passion, through which Constance passes, affording scope 
enough for the most versatile gifts of delivery. If I am right 
in my notion, Shakespearian criticism has not even yet quite 
shaken off the spell thus cast upon it. At all events, I find 
the critics still pitching their praise of the part in a some- 
what higher key than I can persuade my voice to sound. 
The abatement, however, which I would make refers not so 
much to the conception of the character as to the style of 
the execution ; which, it seems to me, is far from displaying 
the Poet's full strength and inwardness with nature. There 
is in many of her speeches a redundancy of rhetoric and 
verbal ingenuity, giving them a too theatrical relish. The 
style thus falls under a reproof well expressed in this very 
play : 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

When workmen strive to do better than well, 
They do confound their skill in covetousness. 

In pursuance of the same thought, Bacon finely remarks the 
great practical difference between the love of excellence and 
the love of excelling. And so here we seem to -have rather 
too much of that elaborate artificialness which springs more 
from ambition than from inspiration. But the fault is among 
those which I have elsewhere noted as marking the work- 
manship of the Poet's earlier period. 

The idea pervading the delineation is well stated by Haz- 
litt as " the excess of maternal tenderness, rendered desper- 
ate by the fickleness of friends and the injustice of fortune, 
and made stronger in will, in proportion to the want of all 
other power." In the judgment of Gervinus, "ambition 
spurred by maternal love, maternal love fired by ambition 
and womanly vanity, form the distinguishing features " of 
Constance ; and he further describes her as "a woman 
whose weakness amounts to grandeur, and whose virtues 
sink into weakness." I am not indeed greatly in love with 
this brilliant way of putting things ; but Gervinus is apt to 
be substantially right in such matters. My own tamer view 
is that the character, though drawn in the best of situations 
for its amiability to appear, is not a very amiable one. 
Herein the play is perhaps the truer to history; as the 
chroniclers make Constance out rather selfish and weak; 
not so rehgious in motherhood but that she betrayed a 
somewhat unvenerable impatience of widowhood. Never- 
theless it must be owned that the soul of maternal grief and 
affection speaks from her lips with not a little majesty of 
pathos, and occasionally flows in strains of the most melting 
tenderness. I know not how the voice of a mother's sorrow 
could discourse more eloquently than in these lines : 



jO KING JOHN. 

Grief fills the room up of my absent child, 
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me ; 
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
Remembers me of all his gracious parts, 
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form : 
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief. 

Nor is there any overstraining of nature in the imagery here 
used ; for the speaker's passion is of just the right kind and 
degree to kindle tlie imagination into the richest and finest 
utterance. 

On the other hand, the general effect of her sorrow is 
marred by too great an infusion of anger, and she shows 
too much pride, self-will, and volubility of scorn, to have 
the full touch of our sympathies. Thus, when Eleanor 
coarsely provokes her, she retorts in a strain of still coarser 
railing ; and the bandying of taunts and slurs between them, 
each not caring what she says, so her speech bites the other, 
is about equally damaging to them both ; a storm of mutual 
abuse, in which there is neither modesty nor wit. It is true, 
she meets with very sore trials of patience, but these can 
hardly be said to open any springs of sweetness or beauty 
within her. When she finds that her heart's dear cause is 
sacrificed to the schemes of politicians ; when it turns out 
that the King of France and the Archduke of Austria are 
driving their own ends in her name, and only pretending 
pity for her and conscience of right, to cover their selfish 
projects, the heart-wringing disappointment inflames her 
into outbursts of sarcastic bitterness and scorn ; her speech 
is stinging and spiteful, and sounds quite as much of the in- 
temperate scold as of the sorrowing and disconsolate mother. 
The impression of her behaviour in these points is well de- 
scribed by Gervinus : '^ What a variety of feeling is expressed 
in those twenty lines where she inquires anxiously after the 



INTRODUCTION. 3 1 

truth of that which shocks her to hear ! How her grief, so 
long as she is alone, restrains itself in calmer anguish in the 
vestibule of despair ! how it first bursts forth in the presence 
of others in powerless revenge, rising to a curse which brings 
no blessing to herself! and how atoningly behind all this 
unwomanly rage lies the foil of maternal love ! We should 
be moved with too violent a pity for this love, if it did not 
weaken our interest by its want of moderation ; we should 
turn away from the violence of the woman, if the strength 
of her maternal affection did not irresistibly enchain us." 

Prince Arthur. 

As Shakespeare used the allowable license of art in stretch- 
ing the life of Constance beyond its actual date, that he 
might enrich his work with the eloquence of a mother's love ; 
so he took a Hke freedom in making Arthur younger than 
the facts prescribed, that he might in larger measure pour in 
the sweetness of childish innocence and wit. Both of these 
departures from strict historic order are highly judicious ; at 
least they are amptly redeemed by the dramatic wealth which 
comes in fitly through them. And in the case of Arthur there 
is the further gain, that the sparing of his eyes is owing to his 
potency of tongue and the piercing touch of gentleness ; 
whereas in the history he is indebted for this to his strength 
of arm. The x\rthur of the play is an artless, gentle, natural- 
hearted, but high-spirited, eloquent boy, in whom we have 
the voice of nature pleading for nature's rights, unrestrained 
by pride of character or place ; who at first braves his uncle, 
because set on to do so by his mother ; and afterwards fears 
him, yet knows not why, because his heart is too full of "the 
holiness of youth " to conceive how any thing so treacherous 



32 KING JOHN. 

and unnatural can be, as that which he fears. And he not 
only has a most tender and loving disposition, such as cruelty 
itself can hardly resist, but is also persuasive and wise far 
beyond his years ; though his power of thought and magic 
of speech are so managed as rather to aid the impression of 
his childish age. Observe, too, how in the scene with 
Hubert his very terror operates in him a sort of preternatural 
illumination, and inspires him to a course of innocent and 
unconscious cunning, — the perfect art of perfect artlessness. 
Of the scene in question Hazlitt justly says, " If any thing 
ever were penned, heart-piercing, mixing the extremes of 
terror and pity, of that which shocks and that which soothes 
the mind, it is this scene." Yet even here the tender pathos 
of the loving and lovely boy is marred with some "quirks of 
wit," such as I can hardly believe the Poet would have 
allowed in his best days. In Arthur's dying speech, — "O 
me ! my uncle's spirit is in these stones," — our impression 
against John is most artfully heightened ; all his foregoing 
inhumanity being, as it were, gathered and concentrated into 
an echo. — Shakespeare has several times thrown the witch- 
ery of his genius into pictures of nursery life, bringing chil- 
dren upon the scene, and delighting us with their innocent 
archness and sweet-witted prattle ; as in the case of Mamil- 
lius in The Winter's Tale, and of Lady Macduff and her son ; 
but Arthur is his most powerful and charming piece in that 
line. That his great, simple, manly heart loved to play with 
childhood, is indeed evident enough. Nor is it the least of 
his claims to our reverence, as an organ of Nature's bland 
and benignant wisdom. 



INTRODUCTION. 33 



Palconbridge. 

The reign of King John furnished no characters fully- 
answering the conditions of high dramatic interest. To 
meet this want, therefore, there was need of one or more 
repj^esentative characters, — persons in whom should be cen- 
tred and consoHdated various elements of national character, 
which were in fact dispersed through many individuals ; or 
a boiling down of the diffused old John Bull into an ideal 
specimen. And such is Falconbridge, with his fiery flood of 
Norman vigour bounding through his veins, his irrepressible 
dance of animal spirits, his athletic and frolicsome wit, his 
big, brave, manly heart, his biting sword, and his tongue 
equally biting ; his soul proof-armoured against all fear save 
that of doing what were wrong or mean. 

The Troublesome Reign supplied the name, and also a 
slight hint towards the character : 

Next them a bastard of the King deceased, 
A hardy wild-head, rough and venturous. 

But the delineation is thoroughly Shakespearian, is crammed 
brimful of the Poet's most peculiar mental life ; so that the 
man is as different as can well be conceived from any thing 
ever dreamed of in the older play. And, what is specially 
worth the noting, Shakespeare clearly embodies in him his 
Own sentiment of nationahty, pours his hearty, full-souled 
EngUsh spirit into him and through him ; so that the charac- 
ter is, at least in the pohtical sense, truly representative of 
the author ; — all this, however, without the slightest tincture 
of egotism or self-obtrusion ; the pure nationality of the man, 
extricated from all personal and partisan mixtures. So, to 
Falconbridge, both head and heart, the King, as before 



34 KING JOHN. 

remarked, is truly the Impersonation of the State ; and he 
surrounds the throne with all those nobilities of thought, and 
all those ideas of majesty and reverence, which are wanting 
in John himself. He thus regards the crown just as the 
wearer ought to regard it. Withal he is fully alive to the 
wrong-headedness and moral baseness of the King ; but the 
office is to him so sacred as the palladium of national unity 
and life, that he will allow neither himself nor others in his 
presence to speak disrespectfully of the man. 

Falconbridge is strangely reckless of appearances. But his 
heart is evidently much better than his tongue : from his 
speech you might suppose gain to be his God of gods ; but 
a far truer language, which he uses without knowing it, tells 
you that gain is to him just no god at all : he talks as if he 
cared for nothing but self-interest, while his works proclaim 
a spirit framed of disinterestedness ; his action thus quietly 
giving the lie to his words ; this too in such sort as establishes 
the more firmly his inward truth. His course in this behalf 
springs partly from an impulse of antagonism to the prevailing 
spirit about him, where he sees great swollen pretences to 
virtue without a particle of the thing itself. What he most of 
all abominates is the pursuit of selfish and sinister ends under 
the garb of religion ; piety on the tongue with covetousness 
in the heart fills him with intense disgust ; and his repug- 
nance is so strong, that it sets him spontaneously upon assum- 
ing a garb of selfishness to cover his real conscientiousness 
of mind and purpose. So too, secretly, he is as generous as 
the Sun, but his generosity puts on an affectation of rudeness 
or something worse : he will storm at you, to bluff you off 
from seeing the kindness he is doing you. Of the same stripe 
is his hatred of cruelty and meanness : while these things are 
rife about him, he never gets angry or makes any quarrel 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

with them; on the contrary, he laughs and breaks sinewy 
jests over them, as if he thought them witty and smart : 
upon witnessing the heartless and unprincipled bargaining 
of the Kjngs, he passes it off jocosely as a freak of the " mad 
world," and verbally frames for himself a plan that " smacks 
somewhat of the policy " ; then, instead of acting out what 
he thus seems to rehsh as a capital thing, he goes on to 
shame down, as far as may be, all such baseness by an ex- 
ample of straightforward nobleness and magnanimity. Then 
too, with all his laughing roughness of speech and iron stern- 
ness of act, so blunt, bold, and downright, he is nevertheless 
full of humane and gentle feeling. With what burning elo- 
quence of indignation does he denounce the supposed mur- 
der of Arthur ! though he has no thought of abetting his 
claims to the throne against the present occupant. He 
abhors the deed as a crime : but to his keen, honest eye it 
is also a stupendous blunder; and he deplores it as such, 
because its huge offensiveness to England's heart is what 
makes it a blunder, and because he is himself in full sym- 
pathy with the national conscience, which cannot but be 
shocked at its hideous criminality. So it may be doubted 
whether he more resents the wickedness or the stupidity of 
the act. And how much it imperils the State is revealed to 
him in the hard strain it makes on his own determined 
allegiance. 

The Poet manages with great art that Falconbridge may 
be held to John throughout the play by ties which he is too 
clear of head and too upright of heart to think of renounc- 
ing. In the first place, he has been highly trusted and hon- 
oured by the King, and he cannot be ungrateful. Then 
again, in his clear-sighted and comprehensive public spirit, 
the diverse interests that split others into factions, and plunge 



36 KING JOHN. 

them into deadly strife, are smoothly reconciled : political 
regards work even more than personal gratitude, to keep him 
steadfast to the King ; and he is ready with tongue and sword 
to beat down whatsoever anywhere obstructs a broad and 
generous nationality. In the intercourse of State function- 
aries, he, to be sure, pays little heed to the delicacies and 
refinements of political diplomacy : his plain, frank nature 
either scorns them or is insensible to them : but his patriot- 
ism is thoroughly sound and true, and knows no taste of 
fear ; and whatever foreign assailants dare to touch England 
or England's honour, he is for pounding them straight out 
of the way, and will think of no alternative but to be pounded 
out of the way by them. — As a representative character, he 
stands next to Falstaff. Thoroughly Gothic in features and 
proportions, and as thoroughly English in temper and spirit, 
his presence rays life and true manhness into every part of 
the drama. Is it strange that a nation which could grow 
such originals should have beaten all the rest of the world in 
every thing useful and beautiful and great? 



KING JOHN. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



King John. 

Prince Henry, his Son. 
Arthur, Duke of Bretagne. 
Mareshall, Earl of Pembroke. 
Fitz-Peter, Earl of Essex. 
LONGSWORD, Earl of Salisbury. 
Bigot, Earl of Norfolk. 
-Hubert de Burgh, Chamberlain. 
Robert Falconbridge. 
Philip, the Bastard, his Half- [Constance, Mother to Arthur. 

Blanch, Daughter to Alphonso, 
King of Castile. 

Lady Falconbridge. 



Philip, King of France. 
Louis, the Dauphin. 
Archduke of Austria. 
Pandulph, the Pope's Legate. 
Melun, a French Lord. 
Chatillon, Ambassador from 
France to King John. 

Elinor, Mother to King John. 



Brother. 
James Gurney, Servant to Lady 

Falconbridge. 
Peter of Pomfret, a Prophet. 

Lords, Citizens of Anglers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, 
and other Attendants. 

Scene. — Sometimes in England, and sometimes in France. 



ACT I. 



Scene I. — Northampton. A Room of State in the Palace. 

Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Pembroke, Essex, Salis- 
bury, and others, with Chatillon. 

K. John. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with 
us? 



38 KING JOHN. ACT I. 

Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France, 
In my behaviour, ^ to the majesty, 
The borrow' d majesty of England here. 

Eli. A strange beginning : borrow'd majesty ! 

K. John. Silence, good mother ; hear the embassy. 

Chat. Philip of France, in right and true behalf 
Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son, 
Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim 
To this fair island and the territories, — 
To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine ; 
Desiring thee to lay aside the sword 
Which sways usurpingly these several titles, 
And put the same into young Arthur's hand. 
Thy nephew and right royal sovereign. 

K.John. What follows, if we disallow of this? 

Chat. The proud control^ of fierce and bloody war, 
T' enforce these rights so forcibly withheld. 

K.John. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood, 
Controlment for controlment : so answer France. 

Chat. Then take my King's defiance from my mouth. 
The farthest limit of my embassy. 

K. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace : 
Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France ; 

1 " In the speech and action I am now going to use." So in v. 2, of this 
play : " Now hear our English King ; for thus his royalty doth speak in 
me." 

2 Control here means coercion or constraint. Hooker often uses the word 
in the kindred sense of to rebuke, censure, or chastise ; as in Preface, ii. 4 : 
" Authority to convent, to control, to punish, as far as excommunication," 
&c. And viii, 7 : " They began to co?itrol the ministers of the Gospel for 
attributing so much force and virtue to the Scriptures o^ God read." Also 
in Book vii. 16, 6: " Which letters he justly taketh in marvellous evil part, 
and therefore severely controlleth his great presumption in making himself 
a judge of a judge." 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 39 

For, ere thou canst report I will be there, 
The thunder of my cannon^ shall be heard : 
So, hence ! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath, 
And sullen ^ presage of your own decay. — 
An honourable conduct let him have : — 
Pembroke, look to't. — Farewell, Chatillon. 

\_Exeunt Chatillon and Pembroke. 

EH. What now, my son ! have I not ever said 
How that ambitious Constance would not cease 
Till she had kindled France and all the world 
Upon the right and party of her son ? 
This might have been prevented and made whole 
With very easy arguments of love ; 
Which now the manage ^ of two kingdoms must 
With fearful bloody issue arbitrate. 

X. John. Our strong possession and our right for us. 

Eli. \_Aside to John.] Your strong possession much more 
than your right. 
Or else it must go wrong with you and me : 

3 The Poet here antedates the use of gunpowder by more than a hundred 
years. So, again, in ii. i, we have the expression, " bullets wrapp'd in fire." 
John's reign began in 1199, and cannon are said to have been first used in 
the battle of Cressy, 1346. Shakespeare was never studious of historical 
accuracy in such points : he aimed to speak the language that was most 
intelligible to his audience, rendering the ancient engines of war by their 
modern equivalents. 

4 Gloo7ny, dismal, doleful are among the old senses of sidleii. So in 
2 Henry IV.,\. i: "And his tongue sounds ever after as a j-z^//,??z bell, re- 
member'd knolling a departing friend." Also in Milton's sonnet to Law- 
rence : " And by the fire help waste a sullen day." — Trumpet, in the line 
before, is put for tru7npeter. Often so. And, in the line after, conduct for 
escort ; also a frequent usage. See Twelfth Night, page 105, note 20. 

5 Manage for management, conduct, or administration ; a frequent usage. 
So in 77;.,? Merchant, iii. 4 : " I commit into your hands the husbandry and 
manage of my house until my lord's return." 



40 KING JOHN. ACT I. 

So much my conscience whispers in your ear, 
Which none but Heaven and you and 1 shall hear. 

Enter the Sheriff of NorthamptonsJw'e who ivhispers Essex. 

Essex. My liege, here is the strangest controversy, 
Come from the country to be judged by you, 
That e'er I heard : shall I produce the men? 

K. John. Let them approach. — \_Exit Sheriff. 

Our abbeys and our priories shall pay 
This expedition's charge. — 

Re-enter Sheriff, with Robert Falconbridge, and Philip his 
bastard Brother. 

What men are you? 

Bast. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman 
Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son, 
As I suppose, to Robert Falconbridge, 
A soldier, by the honour-giving hand 
Of Coeur-de-Hon knighted in the field. 

K.John. What art thou? 

Rob. The son and heir to that same Falconbridge. 

K.John. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir? 
You came not of one mother, then, it seems. 

Bast. Most certain of one mother, mighty King, 
That is well known ; and, as I think, one father : 
But for the certain knowledge of that truth, 
I put you o'er to Heaven and to m.y mother. 

Eli. Out on thee, rude man ! thou dost shame thy mother 
And wound her honour with this diffidence. 

Bast. I, madam? no, I have no reason for it : 
That is my brother's plea, and none of mine ; 
The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 41 

At least from fair five hundred pound a year : 
Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land ! 

K. John. A good blunt fellow. — Why, being younger born, 
Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance ? 

Bast. I know not why, except to get the land. 
But once he slander'd me with bastardy : 
But wher^ I be as true begot or no, 
That still I lay upon my mother's head. 

K.John. Why, what a madcap hath Heaven sent us here ! 

Eli. He hath a trick ^ of Coeur-de-lion's face ; 
The accent of his tongue affecteth him : ^ 
Do you not read some tokens of my son 
In the large composition of this man ? 

K. John. Mine eye hath well examined his parts. 
And finds them perfect Richard. — Sirrah, speak. 
What doth move you to claim your brother's land? 

Bast Because he hath a half- face, like my father, 
With that half- face would he have all my land : 
A half-faced groat ^ five hundred pound a year ! 

Rob. My gracious liege, when that my father lived, 
Your brother did employ my father much, — 

Bast. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land. 

Rod. — And once dispatch'd him in an embassy 



6 A frequent contraction of whether. 

7 Trick, as here used, is properly an heraldic term for mark or note ; 
hence meaning a peculiarity of countenance or expression. 

8 To affect a thing is, in one sense, to draw or incline towards it ; that is, 
to resemble it. The meaning here is, that the Bastard's speech has a sinack 
of his alleged father's. 

9 The groats of Henry VII. differed from other coins in having a half- 
face, or profile, instead of a full-face. Hence the phrase half-faced groat 

came to be used of a meagre visage. So in The Downfall of Robert Earl 
of Huntingdon, 1601 : " You halffac'd groat, you thin-cheek'd chitty face." 



42 KING JOHN. ACT I. 

To Germany, there with the Emperor 
To treat of high affairs touching that time. 
Th' advantage of his absence took the King, 
And in the mean time sojourn'd at my father's. 
Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd 
His lands to me ; and took it on his death,^^ 
That this my mother's son was none of his : 
Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine, 
My father's land, as was my father's will. 

K. John. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate, 
Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him : 
Your father's heir must have your father's land. 

Rob. Shall, then, my father's will be of no force 
To dispossess that child which is not his ? 

Eli. Wher hadst thou rather,^! be a Falconbridge, 
And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land. 
Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion, 
Lord of thy presence, ^^ and no land besides? 

Bast. Madam, an if my brother had my shape, 
And I had his. Sir Robert his,!^ like him ; 



10 This appears to have been a common form of making oath, or swear- 
ing to a thing. So in i Henry IV., v. 4 : " I'll take it upon my death, I gave 
him this wound in the thigh." 

11 Wher, again, for whether. And in alternative questions whether is 
often used as equivalent to which, or which of the two. So that the mean- 
ing here is, " Which wouldst thou prefer, to be a Falconbridge," &c. 

12 Presence is here equivalent to person ; and the meaning is lord i7t 
right of thy own person. The lord of a thing is, properly, the owner of it ; 
and lords are commonly such in virtue of the lands and titles that belong to 
them. As the son of a king, Falconbridge will be a lord by personal right, 
whether he has any lands or not. Sir Henry Wotton's Happy Man has a 
similar expression : " Lord of himself, though not of lands." 

13 Sir Robert his is merely equivalent to Sir Robert's ; his being the old 
siern of the genitive. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 43 

And if my legs were two such riding-rods, 

My arms such eel-skins stuff 'd ; my face so thin, 

That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose. 

Lest men should say. Look, whei^e three-farthings goes ! ^'^ 

And, to ^^ his shape, were heir to all this land ; 

Would I might never stir from off this place, 

I'd give it every foot to have this face : 

I would not be Sir Nob in any case. 

Eli. I like thee well : wilt thou forsake thy fortune, 
Bequeath thy land to him, and follow me ? 
I am a soldier, and now bound to France. 

Bast. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance : 
Your face hath got five hundred pound a year ; 
Yet sell your face for five pence, and 'tis dear. — 
Madam, I'll follow you unto the death. 

Eli. Nay, I would have you go before me thither. 

Bast. Our country manners give our betters way. 

K.John. What is thy name? 

Bast. Philip, my liege, — so is my name begun, — 
Philip, good old Sir Robert's wife's eld'st son. 

K.John. From henceforth bear his name whose form 
thou bear'st : 
Kneel thou down Philip, but arise more great, — 
Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.^^ 

14 Alluding to the three-farthing pieces of Elizabeth, which, being of sil- 
ver, were of course very thin. These pieces had a profile of the Queen on 
the obverse side, and a rose on the reverse. Staunton notes that, " as with 
the profile of the sovereign it bore the emblem of a rose, its similitude to a 
weazen-faced beau with that flower stuck in his ear, according to a courtly 
fashion of Shakespeare's day, is sufficiently intelligible and humorous." 

15 Here to has the force of in addition to ; a fi-equent usage. 

16 Plantagenet was originally an epithet conferred upon a member of the 
House of Anjou from his wearing a stalk of the \iXQQn\-'^\dja.\., planta genista, 
in his cap or bonnet. 



44 KING JOHN. ACT I. 

Bast. Brother by th' mother's side, give me your hand : 
My father gave me honour, yours gave land. 

Eli, The very spirit of Plantagenet ! — 
I am thy grandam, Richard; call me so. 

Bast. Madam, by chance, but not by truth : what though ? 
Something about, a little from the right,^''' 
In at the window, or else o'er the hatch ; ^^ 
Who dares not stir by day must walk by night ; 
And have is have, however men do catch ; 
Near or far off, well won is still well shot. 

K.John. Go, Falconbridge : now hast thou thy desire ; 
A landless knight makes thee a landed squire. — 
Come, madam, — and come, Richard ; we must speed 
For France, for France ; for it is more than need. 

Bast. Brother, adieu : good fortune come to thee ! — 

\_Exeunt all but the Bastard. 
A foot of honour better than I was, 
But many a many foot of land the worse. 
Well, now can I make any Joan a lady : 
Good den}^ Sir Richard: — God-a-7nercy, fellow I 

17 That is, " I am your grandson, though, to be sure, somewhat irregu- 
larly so ; but that matters little, since what a man has, he has, however he 
came by it ; and, in a shooting-match, it makes no difference whether one 
hits close or wide of the mark, so long as he wins the game." Such is in 
substance Johnson's explanation. Here, as often, truth is put for honesty. 
So true man often means honest man. 

18 These were proverbial phrases applied to persons born illegitimately. 
So in The Family of Love, i6o8 : " Woe worth the time that ever I gave 
suck to a child that came in at a window." And in The Witches of Lanca- 
shire, 1634 : " I would not have you think I scorn my grannam's cat to leap 
over the hatch'' 

19 Good den vfSiS a common colloquialism ior good even. — God-a-mercy 
is an old colloquialism for God have mercy; that is, " God pardon me." 
Here it stands as a sort of apology for non-recognition. — yoan, in the line 
before, is used as a common term meanincr about the same as wench. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 45 

And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter ; 

For new-made honour doth forget men's names ; 

'Tis too respective and too sociable 

For your conversion.^^ Now your traveller, — 

He and his toothpick at my Worship's mess ; 

And, when my knightly stomach is sufficed, 

Why, then I suck my teeth, and catechize 

My picked man, of countries : ^^ My dear sir, 

Thus, leaning on mine elbow, I begin, 

/ shall beseech you — that is Question now ; 



20 Conversion here means change of condition, such as the speaker has 
just undergone in being transferred to a higher rank. Respective is mind- 
ful ox considerate ; a very frequent usage. The language of the passage is 
elhptical ; the meaning being, that remembering men's names implies too 
much thought of others, and too much community of feeling, for one that 
has just been lifted into nobility of rank. The Bastard is ridiculing the 
affectations of aristocratic greenhorns. See Critical Notes. 

21 Picked is scrupulously nice, fastidious, or coxcombical ; as in Love's 
Labours Lost, v. i : " He is too picked, too spruce, too odd, too affected, as 
it were, too peregrinate." " My picked man " here is a man who pranks up 
his behaviour with foreign airs, or what may pass for such ; and the mean- 
ing is, catechize him of, or about, the countries he claims to have seen. In 
Shakespeare's time, which was an age of newly-awakened curiosity, with 
but small means of gratifying it, travellers were much welcomed to the 
tables of the rich and noble, for the instruction and entertainment of their 
talk. This naturally drew on a good deal of imposture from such as were 
more willing to wag their tongues than to work with their hands. It seems 
that the tooth-pick was wont to cut a prominent figure in the conduct of 
such persons. So in Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, ii. i : " Amorphus, a travel- 
ler, one so made out of the mixture of shreds of forms, that himself is truly 
deform'd. He walks most commonly with a clove or pick-tooth in his 
mouth; he is the mint of compliment; all his behaviours are printed," &c. 
Also in Overbury's Characters : " His attire speakes French or Italian, and 
his gate cries. Behold me. He censures all things by countenances and 
shrugs, and speakes his own language with shame and lisping: he will 
choake rather than confess beere good drinke ; and his pick-tooth is a 
maine part of his behaviour." 



46 KING JOHN. ACT I. 

And then comes Answer like an A B C-book : ^^ 

O sir, says Answer, at your best command ; 

At your employ77ient ; at your service, sir : 

No, sir, says Question ; /, sweet sir, at yours : 

And so, ere Answer kaows what Question would, — 

Saving in dialogue of compliment. 

And talking of the Alps and Appennines, 

The Pyrenean and the river Po, — 

It draws toward supper in conclusion so. 

But this is worshipful society. 

And fits the mounting spirit like myself; 

For he is but a bastard to the time, 

That doth not smack of observation : ^^ 

And so am I, — whether I smack or no, — 

And not alone in habit and device, 

Exterior form, outward accoutrement. 

But from the inward motion, to deliver 

Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth : ^^ 

Which, though I will not practise to deceive, 

Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn ; ^^ 

^^ A B C-book was for teaching children their letters, catechism, &c. 

23 The meaning is, that the present time thinks scorn of a man who does 
not show by his dress and manners that he has travelled abroad, and ob- 
served the world. Sir Richard here uses bastard in a double sense ; for one 
born illegitimately, and also for one that the time regards as base, that is, 
low-born or low-bred. 

24 Something of obscurity here, perhaps. But I take the infinitive to de- 
liver as depending upon / am. Motion is motive, or moving power ; and 
" inward motion " is an honest, genuine impulse or purpose in antithesis to 
the mere externals spoken o.f just before. So that Sir Richard means that 
he is going to humour the world in his outward man, and at the same time 
be thoroughly sound within ; or that he will appear what the age craves, and 
yet be what he ought. 

25 The which, in this latter member of the sentence, I understand as 
referring to the whole sense of the preceding member. The speaker means 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 47 

For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising. 
But who comes in such haste in riding- robes ? 
What woman-post is this ? hath she no husband, 
That will take pains to blow a horn before her?^^ 

Enter Lady Falconbridge and James Gurney. 

O me ! it is my mother. — How now, good lady ! 
What brings you here to Court so hastily ? 

Lady F. Where is that slave, thy brother ? where is he 
That holds in chase mine honour up and down? 

Bast My brother Robert ? old Sir Robert's son ? 
Colbrand the giant,^? that same mighty man? 
Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so ? 

Lady F. Sir Robert's son ! Ay, thou unreverend boy. 
Sir Robert's son : why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert ? 
He is Sir Robert's son ; and so art thou. 

Bast. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile ? 

Gu7\ Good leave, good Philip. 

Bast. Philip ! sparrow ! ^^ James, 

to learn the arts of popularity, and to practise them, not hollowly, that he 
may cheat the people, or play the demagogue, but from the heart, and that 
he may be an overmatch for the cheats and demagogues about him. The 
Poet here prepares us for the honest and noble part which Falconbridge 
takes in the play; giving us an early inside taste of this most downright and 
forthright humourist, who delights in a sort of righteous or inverted 
hypocrisy, talking like a knave, and acting like a hero. 

26 A double allusion, to the horns blown by postmen, and to such horns 
as Lady Falconbridge has endowed her husband with. See The Merchant, 
page 184, note 9. 

2" The famous Danish giant whom Guy of Warwick vanquished in the 
presence of King Athelstan. The History of Guy was a popular book. 

28 The sparrow was called Philip, because its note resembles that name. 
So va.ljy\y's, Mother Bofnbie : "Phip,phip,ihQ sparrows as they fly." And 
Catullus, in his elegy on Lesbia's sparrow, formed the verb pipilabat, to 
express the note of that bird. The new Sir Richard tosses off the name 
Philip with affected contempt. 



48 KING JOHN. ACT I. 

There's toys^^ abroad : anon I'll tell thee more. — 

\_Exit GURNEY. 

Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son ; 
Sir Robert might have eat his part in me 
Upon Good- Friday, and ne'er broke his fast. 

Lady F. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too, 
That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour ? 
What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave ? 

Bast. Knight, knight, good mother, — Basilisco-like : ^o 
What ! I am dubb'd ; I have it on my shoulder. 
But, mother, I am not Sir Robert's son ; 
I have dis claim 'd Sir Robert ; and my land. 
Legitimation, name, and all is gone : 
Then, good my mother,^! let me know my father ; 
Some proper ^^ man, I hope : who was it, mother ? 

Lady F. Hast thou denied thyself a Falconbridge ? 

Bast. As faithfully as I deny the Devil. 

Lady F. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father : 
Heaven lay not my transgression to thy charge ! 

Bast. Madam, I would not wish a better father. 
Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose. 



29 Toys sometimes means rumours or idle reports : here it probably 
means slight cha?tges or ?iovelties ; alluding humorously to the changes in 
the speaker's name and rank. 

30 Referring to the old play of Solyman and Perseda, 1599, in which there 
is a bragging, cowardly knight called Basilisco. Piston, a buffoon, jumps 
upon his back, and forces him to take an oath as " the afor^esaid Basilisco " ; 
whereupon he says, "I, the aforesaid Basilisco, — knight, good fellow, 
knight " ; and Piston replies, ''Knave, good fellow, k?iave." 

31 We should say, " my good mother." Such inversions occur very often 
all through these plays. So we have " dread my lord," " sweet my sister," 
"gentle my brother," "gracious my mother," &c. 

^'^ Proper \z handsome, fine-looking ; such being then the more common 
meaning of the word. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 49 

Against whose fury and unmatched force 

The awless lion could not wage the fight, 

Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand: 

He that perforce robs lions of their hearts ^3 

May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother. 

With all my heart I thank thee for my father ! 



ACT II. 

Scene I. — France. Before the Walls of Anglers. 

Enter, on one side, Philip, King of France, Louis, Con- 
stance, Arthur, and Forces ; on the other, the Archduke 
^Austria and Forces. 

K. Phi. Before Anglers well met, brave Austria ! — 
Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood, 
Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart. 
And fought the holy wars in Palestine, 
By this brave Duke came early to his grave : ^ 

33 It is sayd that a lyon was put to Kynge Richarde, beynge in prison, to 
have devoured him ; and, when the lyon was gapynge, he put his arm in his 
mouthe, and pulled the lyon by the harte so hard, that he slew the lyon ; 
and therefore some say he is called Rycharde Cure de Lyon : but some say 
he is called Cure de Lyon because of his boldnesse and hardy stomake. — 
Rastall's Chronicle. 

1 In point of fact, Leopold, the Duke of Austria who imprisoned Richard, 
died by a fall from his horse in 1195, four years before John came to the 
throne ; and Richard fell by the hand of the Viscount of Limoges, one of 
his own vassals. But Shakespeare, following the old play, makes Limoges 
and Austria the same person. So in iii. i : " O Limoges ! O Austria! thou 
dost shame that bloody spoil." And in the old play : " The Bastard chaseth 
Lymoges the Austrich Duke, and maketh him leave the lyon's skin." 



50 KING JOHN. ACT II. 

And, for amends to his posterity, 

At our importance - hither is he come, 

To spread his colours, boy, in thy beiialf ; 

And to rebuke the usurpation 

Of thy unnatural uncle, English John : 

Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither. 

ArtJi. God shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's death 
The rather that you give his offspring life, 
Shadowing their right under your wings of war : 
I give you welcome with a powerless hand. 
But with a heart full of unstained love : ^ 
Welcome before the gates of Angiers, Duke. 

K. Phi. A noble boy ! Who would not do thee right? 

Aust. Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss, 
As seal to this indenture ^ of my love ; 
That to my home I will no more return. 
Till Angiers, and the right thou hast in France, 
Together with that pale, that white-faced shore, 
Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides, 
And coops from other lands her islanders, — 
Even till that England, hedged in with the main, 
That water-walled bulwark, still secure 
And confident from foreign purposes, — 

2 Importance for importunity ; a. frequent usage. See Twelfth Night, 
page 136, note 29. 

3 We have an instance of similar language in Pericles, i. i : " My U7i- 
spotted fire of love." Also near the close of this play : " And the like tender 
of our love we make, to rest without a spot for evermore." 

4 An indenture is, properly, a written contract drawn in duplicate on one 
piece of parchment, and then two copies cut with ifidetztatiofts, so as to 
guard against counterfeits. Setting the seal to such an instrument was the 
finishing stroke of the process, and made the contract good in law. — In the 
third line after, "that pale, that white-faced shore" refers to the chalky 
cliffs at Dover which from the opposite coast appear as a whitened wall. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 5 1 

Even till that utmost corner of the West 
Salute thee for her king : till then, fair boy, 
Will I not think of home, but follow arms. 

Const. O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks, 
Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength 
To make a more ^ requital to your love ! 

Aust The peace of Heaven is theirs that lift their swords 
In such a just and charitable war. 

K. Phi. Well, then, to work : our cannon shall be bent 
Against the brows of this resisting town. — 
Call for our chiefest men of discipline. 
To cull the plots of best advantages : ^ 
We'll lay before this town our royal bones. 
Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood, 
But we will make it subject to this boy. 

Co7ist. Stay for an answer to your embassy. 
Lest unadvised you stain your swords with blood : 
My Lord Chatillon may from England bring 
That right in peace which here we urge in war ; 
And then we shall repent each drop of blood 
That hot rash haste so indirectly ''' shed. 

K. Phi. A wonder, lady ; lo, upon thy wish, 
Our messenger Chatillon is arrived ! — 

Enter Chatillon. 

What England says, say briefly, gentle lord ; 

5 More in the sense oi greater. So in i Henry IV., iv. 3: "The more 
and less came in with cap and knee." 

6 That is, to select the most advantageous places for assault. 

7 Indirectly in the Latin sense of indirectus ; that is, wrongfully. Such 
a wanton or needless shedding of blood would be unrighteous ; so Con- 
stance thinks. 



52 KING JOHN. ACT II. 

We coldly pause for thee ; Chatillon, speak. 

Chat. Then turn your forces from this paltry siege, 
And stir them up against a mightier task. 
England, impatient of your just demands, 
Hath put himself in arms : the adverse winds, 
Whose leisure I have stay'd,^ have given him time 
To land his legions all as soon as I ; 
His marches are expedient^ to this town, 
His forces strong, his soldiers confident. 
With him along is come the mother-queen. 
An Ate,i^ stirring him to blood and strife ; 
With her, her niece, the Lady Blanch of Spain ; 
With them, a bastard of the King deceased : 
And all th' unsettled humours of the land, — 
Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries, 
With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens,i^ — 
Have sold their fortunes at their native homes, 
Bearing their birthrights ^^ proudly on their backs, 
To make a hazard of new fortunes here : 
In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits, 
Than now the EngHsh bottoms have waft^^ o'er. 
Did never float upon the swelling tide. 
To do offence and scathe in Christendom. 
The interruption of their churlish drums \_Drums ivithin. 

8 The winds whose quietness, or whose subsiding, I have waited for. 

9 Expedient for rapid or expeditious ; a common usage in the Poet's 
time. See Richard III., page 6i, note i8. 

10 Ate was the goddess of discord, the unholy spirit of hate. 

11 The spleen was supposed to be the special seat of the electric and gun- 
powder passions. See A Midsummer, page 29, note 17. 

12 A birthright, as the word is here used, is an inherited estate. 

13 Waft for wafted. The Poet has many preterites formed the same way, 
such as quit, hoist, &c. See The Teinpest, page 56, note 43. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. - 53 

Cuts off more circumstance : '^'^ they are at hand, 

To parley or to fight ; therefore prepare. 

X. F/ii. How much unlook'd for is this expedition I^^ 
Aiisf. By how much unexpected, by so much 

We must awake endeavour for defence ; 

For courage mounteth with occasion : 

Let them be welcome, then ; we are prepared. 

Enter King John, Elinor, Blanch, the Bastard, Lords, and 

Forces. 

K. John. Peace be to France, if France in peace permit 
Our just and lineal entrance to our own ! 
If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to Heaven ! 
Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct 
Their proud contempt that beat his peace to Heaven. 

K. Phi. Peace be to England, if that war return 
From France to England, there to live in peace ! 
England we love ; and for that England's sake 
With burden of our armour here we sweat. 
This toil of ours should be a work of thine ; 
But thou from loving England art so far, 
That thou hast under- wrought ^^ his lawful King, 
Cut off the sequence of posterity. 
Out-faced infant state, and done a rape 
Upon the maiden virtue of the crown. 
Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face : 
These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his : 
This little abstract doth contain that large 

14 Circumstance iox particulars, ox circumstantial detail. Often so. See 
The Merchant, page 87, note 38. 

15 Expedition in the same sense as expedient, a little before ; speed or 
swiftness. 

16 Under-wrought iox undermined ; supplanted by underhand '^x2jc\xcq.^. 



54 KING JOHN. ACT II. 

Which died in Geffrey ; ^"^ and the hand of time 
Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume. 
That Geffrey was thy elder brother born, 
And this his son ; England was Geffrey's right, 
And his is Geffrey's : ^^ in the name of God, 
How comes it, then, that thou art call'd a king. 
When living blood doth in these temples beat. 
Which owe^^ the crown that thou o'ermasterest? 

K.John. From whom hast thou this great commission, 
France, 
To draw my answer to thy articles? 

K. Phi. From that supernal Judge that stirs good thoughts 
In any breast of strong authority, 
To look into the blots and stains of right. 
That Judge hath made me guardian to this boy : 
Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong ; 
And by whose help I mean to chastise it. 

K. John. Alack, thou dost usurp authority. 

K. Phi. Excuse, — it is to beat usurping down. 

Eli. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France ? 

Const. Let me make answer ; — thy usurping son. 

Eli. Out, insolent ! thy bastard shall be king. 
That thou mayst be a queen, and check the world 1^^ 

Cotist My heart was ever to thy son as true 

1'^ This miniature contains, in little, that which died large, or full-grown, 
in Geffrey. Abstract here means the same as brief m the next clause. 

18 Meaning that whatever was Geffrey's is now his, that is, Arthur's. 
The sense would be clearer if the order of the words were inverted. See 
Critical Notes. 

19 Owe for own, possess ; continually so in Shakespeare. 

20 " The allusion," says Staunton, " is obviously to the Queen of the chess- 
board, which, in this country, was invested with those remarkable powers 
that rendered her by far the most powerful piece of the game, somewhere 
about the second decade of the i6th century." 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 55 

As thine was to thy husband ; and this boy 
Liker in feature to his father Geffrey 
Than thou and John in manners ; being as Uke 
As rain to water, or devil to his dam. 

Aust. Peace ! 

Basf. Hear the crier.^i 

Aust, What the Devil art thou ? 

Bast One that will play the Devil, sir, with you, 
And 'a may catch your hide and you alone : ^^ 
You are the hare of whom the proverb goes. 
Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard : ^^ 
I'll smoke your skin-coat, an I catch you right ; 
Sirrah, look to't ; i'faith, I will, i'faith. 

Blanch. O, well did he become that lion's robe 
That did disrobe the lion of that robe ! 

Bast. It lies as sightly on the back of him 
As great Alcides' does upon an ass : — 
But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back, 
Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack. 



21 Alluding to the order for silence proclaimed by criers in courts of 
justice. The Bastard is baiting Austria. 

22 What most of all kindles the wrath of Falconbridge against Austria is, 
that the latter, after having caused the death of King Richard, now wears 
the lion's hide which had belonged to that prince. In the old play Falcon- 
bridge is made to exclaim, " My father's foe clad in my father's spoyle ! " — 
The 'a in this line is an old colloquialism for he or she, much used in the 
Poet's time. So in the preceding scene: "The which if he can prove, 'a 
pops me out," &c. 

23 This proverb is met with in the Adagia of Erasmus : " Mortuo leoni 
et lepores insultant." So in The Spanish Tragedy : " So hares may pull 
dead lions by the beard." — Smoke, in the next line, is an old provincialism 
for to cudgel, to drub, or thrash. So Cotgrave's Dictionary : "Lcn auray, 
— blowes being understood, — I shall be well beaten; my skin-coat will be 
soundly curried." This explanation is Halliwell's. 



56 KING JOHN. ACT II. 



Aust. What cracker ^4 is this same that deafs our 
With this abundance of superfluous breath ? — 
King Philip, determine what we shall do straight. 

K. Phi. Women and fools, break off your conference. — 
King John, this is the very sum of all, 
England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine^ Maine, 
In right of Arthur do I claim of thee : 
Wilt thou resign them, and lay down thy arms ? 

K. John. My life as soon ! I do defy thee, France. — 
Arthur of Bretagne, yield thee to my hand ; 
And, out of my dear love, I'll give thee more 
Than e'er the coward hand of France can win : 
Submit thee, boy. 

Eli. Come to thy grandam, child. 

Const. Do, child, go to it' ^^ grandam, child ; 
Give grandam kingdom, and it' grandam will 
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig : 
There's a good grandam. 

Ai'th. Good my mother, peace ! 

I would that I were low laid in my grave : 
I am not worth this coil^^ that's made for me. 

Eli. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps. 

24 Cracker for boaster ; of course with a punning allusion to the word 
crack used just before. So we often speak of cracking up a thing ; that is, 
bragging of it. And so in Cymbeline, v. 5 : " Our brags were crack' d of 
kitchen-trulls," &c. 

25 Shakespeare has many instances of it used possessively, for its, which 
was not then an accepted word. In such cases, modern editors generally, 
and justly, print its instead of it. The text, however, should probably pass 
as an exception to the rule, since, as Lettsom remarks, " Constance here is 
evidently mimicking the imperfect babble of the nursery." Doubtless we 
have all heard it so used in " baby talk." 

26 Coil is bustle, tumult, or fuss. Often so. See Much Ado, page 121, 
note 7. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 5/ 

Qtef/. Now shame upon you, wher she does or no ! 
His "gi^andam's wrongs, and not his mother's shames, 
Draw those Heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes, 
Which Heaven shall take in nature of a fee ; 
Ay, with these crystal beads Heaven shall be bribed 
To do him justice, and revenge on you. 

Eli. Thou monstrous slanderer of Heaven and Earth ! 

Const. Thou monstrous injurer of Heaven and Earth ! 
Call not me slanderer j thou and thine usurp 
The dominations, royalties, and rights 
Of this oppressed boy, thy eld'st son's son, 
Infortunate in nothing but in thee : 
Thy sins are visited in this poor child ; 
The canon of the law is laid on him, 
Being but the second generation 
Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb. 

K.JoJui. Bedlam, have done. 

Const. I have but this to say, 

That he's not only plagued for her sin. 
But God hath made her sin and her the plague 
On this removed issue ; — plagued for her. 
And with 2^ her plagued ; her sin his injury; 
Her injury the beadle ^^ to her sin : 

27 Shakespeare often uses with where the present idiom requires iy; as 
in Julius CcBsar, iii. 2 : " Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors." 
— Constance still has in mind the words of the second Commandment, 
" visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth 
generation." And she means, that Arthur not only suffers in consequence 
of Elinor's crime, or on her account, but is also plagued by her, as the direct 
agent or instrument of his sufferings. 

28 The beadle is the ofiEicer who, as the sheriff with us, executes the sen- 
tence of the court upon persons condemned. The meaning is, that Elinor's 
sin draws evil upon Arthur, and that her sin is moreover the executioner of 
that evil. 



53 , KING JOHN. ACT II. 

All punish'd in the person of this child, 
And all for her. A plague upon her ! 

Eli. Thou unadvised "29 scold, I can produce 
A will that bars the title of thy son. 

Const. Ay, who doubts that ? a will ! a wicked will ; 
A woman's will ; a canker'd "^^ grandam's will ! 

K. Phi. Peace, lady ! pause, or be more temperate : 
It ill beseems this presence to cry aim^i 
To these ill-tuned repetitions. — 
Some trumpet summon hither to the walls 
These men of Anglers : let us hear them speak, 
Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's. 

Trumpet sounds. E7iter Citizens iipon the walls. 

I Cit. Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls? 

K. Phi. 'Tis France, for England. 

K. John. England, for itself. 

You men of Anglers, and my loving subjects, — 

K. Phi. You loving men of Anglers, Arthur's subjects, 
Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle, — 

K. John. For our advantage ; therefore hear us first. 
These flags of France, that are advanced here 
Before the eye and prospect of your town. 
Have hither march'd to your endamagement : 
The cannons have their bowels full of wrath. 
And ready mounted are they to spit forth 

29 Unadvised here means inconsiderate, reckless, or rash. So the Poet 
often has advised for considerate or careful. So unadvised in the preceding 
scene : " Lest unadvised you stain your swords with blood." See, also, 
Richard III,, page i68, note 30. 

30 Here canker d probably means malignant ; as in cancer, a malignant 
sore. See The Tonpest, page 127, note 41. 

SI To cry aim was a term in archery, meaning to encourage or instigate. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 59 

Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls : 

All preparation for a bloody siege 

And merciless proceeding by these French 

Confront your city's eyes, your winking gates ; 

And, but for our approach, those sleeping stones, 

That as a waist do girdle you about, 

By the compulsion of their ordinance ^^ 

By this time from their fixed beds of lime 

Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made 

For bloody power to rush upon your peace. 

But, on the sight of us, your lawful King, -^ 

Who painfully, with much expedient march, 

Have brought a countercheck before your gates. 

To save unscratch'd your city's threaten'd cheeks, — r 

Behold, the French, amazed, vouchsafe a parle ; 

And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire, 

To make a shaking fever in your walls, 

They shoot but calm words, folded up in smoke, 

To make a faithless error in your ears : 

Which trust accordingly, kind citizens, 

And let us in, your King ; whose labour'd spirits, 

Forwearied in this action of swift speed. 

Crave harbourage within your city-walls. 

X. P/ii. When I have said, make answer to us both. 
Lo, in this right hand, whose protection 
Is most divinely vow'd upon the right 
Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet, 
Son to the elder brother of this man. 
And king o'er him, and all that he enjoys : 



3"-^ Ordinance for ordnance. The Poet uses it so, where the verse wants 
a trisyllable. — Dishabited, second line below, is dislodged. 



6o KING JOHN. ACT n. 

For this down-trodden equity, we tread 

In warlike march these greens ^^ before your town; 

Being no further enemy to you 

Than the constraint of hospitable zeal 

In the rehef of this oppressed child 

Religiously provokes. Be pleased, then, 

To pay that duty which you truly owe 

To him that owes ^^ it, namely, this young Prince : 

And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear. 

Save in aspect, have all offence seal'd up ; 

Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent 

Against th' invulnerable clouds of heaven ; 

And with a blessed and unvex'd retire. 

With unhack'd swords and helmets all unbruised. 

We will bear home that lusty blood again 

Which here we came to spout against your town, 

And leave your children, wives, and you in peace. 

But, if you fondly pass our proffer'd peace, 

'Tis not the rondure ^^ of your old-faced walls 

Can hide you from our messengers of war. 

Though all these English, and their discipline, 

Were harbour'd in their rude circumference. 

Then, tell us, shall your city call us lord, 

In that behalf which we have challenged it ? 

Or shall we give the signal to our rage. 

And stalk in blood to our possession? 

I Cit. In brief, we are the King of England's subjects : 

S3 " Greens for plants, or vegetation in general," says Walker. 

34 Owes for owns, while owe, in the preceding line, has the present mean- 
ing of that word. 

^° Rondure is circle or girdle ; from XhQYvenchrondeur. — Fojidly , iine. 
before, \s foolishly ; a common usage. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 6 1 

For him, and in his right, we hold this town. 

X. John. Acknowledge, then, the King, and let me in. 

I Cit. That can we not ; but he that proves the King, 
To him will we prove loyal : till that time 
Have we ramm'd up our gates against the world. 

K. John. Doth not the crown of England prove the King? 
And if not that, I bring you witnesses, 
Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed, — 

Bast. Bastards, and else. 

K.John. —To vorify our title with their lives. 

K. Phi. As many and as well-born bloods as those, — 

Bast. Some bastards too. 

K. Phi. — Stand in his face, to contradict his claim. 

I Cit. Till you compound whose right is worthiest. 
We for the worthiest hold the right from both. 

K. John. Then God forgive the sin of all those souls 
That to their everlasting residence. 
Before the dew of evening fall, shall fleet. 
In dreadful trial of our kingdom's King ! 

K. Phi. Amen, amen ! — Mount, chevaliers ! to arms ! 

Bast. Saint George, that swinged the dragon, and e'er 
since 
Sits on his horse' back at mine hostess' door,^^ 
Teach us some fence ! — \To Aust.] Sirrah, were I at home, 
At your den, sirrah, with your lioness, 
I'd set an ox-head to your lion's hide. 
And make a monster of you. 

Aicst. Peace ! no more. 

Bast. O, tremble, for you hear the lion roar ! 

K. John. Up higher to the plain j where we'll set forth 

36 Pictures of Saint George armed and mounted, as when he overthrew 
the Dragon, were used for innkeepers' signs. 



62 KING JOHN. ACT II. 

In best appointment all our regiments. 

Bast. Speed, then, to take advantage of the field. 

K. Phi. It shall be so ; — \To Louis.] and at the other hill 
Command the rest to stand. — God and our right ! 

\Exeunt, severally, the English and Fi^ench Kings, &^c. 

After excursions, enter a French Herald, with trumpets, to 

the gates. 

F. Her. You men of Anglers, open wide your gates, 
And let young Arthur, Duke of Bretagne, in. 
Who, by the hand of France, this day hath made- 
Much work for tears in many an English mother, 
Whose sons lie scatter'd on the bleeding ground : 
Many a widow's husband grovelKng lies. 
Coldly embracing the discolour' d earth ; 
And victory, with little loss, doth play 
Upon the dancing banners of the French, 
Who are at hand, triumphantly display'd, 
To enter conquerors, and to proclaim 
Arthur of Bretagne England's King and yours. 

Enter an English Herald, with trumpets. 

E. Her. Rejoice, you men of Anglers, ring your bells ; 
King John, your King and England's, doth approach. 
Commander of this hot malicious day : 
Their armours, that march'd hence so silver-bright, 
Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood ; ^7 
There stuck no plume in any Enghsh crest 
That is removed by a staff of France ; 

3" The phrase ^i/^(?(^ or gilt with blood was common. So in Chapman's 
Iliad, book xvi. : " The curets from great Hector's breast all gilded with his 
gorey 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 63 

Our colours do return in those same hands 

That did display them when we first march'd forth ; 

And, like a jolly troop of huntsmen, come 

Our lusty English, all with purpled hands, 

Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes : ^^ 

Open your gates, and give the victors way. 

I Cit. HeraldSj from off our towers we might behold, 
From first to last, the onset and retire 
Of both your armies ; whose equality 
By our best eyes cannot be censured : 
Blood hath' bought blood, and blows have answer'd blows ; 
Strength match 'd with strength, and power confronted power : 
Both are alike ; and both alike we like. 
One must prove greatest : while they weigh so even, 
We hold our town for neither ; yet for both. 

Re-eiifer, on one side, King John, Elinor, Blanch, the Bas- 
tard, Lords, and Forces ; on the other, King Philip, Louis, 
Austria, and Forces. 

K. John. France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away? 
Say, shall the current of our right run on ? 
Whose passage, vex'd with thy impediment, 
Shall leave his native channel, and o'erswell 
With course disturb'd even thy confining shores, 
Unless thou let his silver waters keep 
A peaceful progress to the ocean. 

K. Phi. England, thou hast not saved one drop of blood, 
In this hot trial, more than we of France ; 
Rather, lost more : and by this hand I swear, 



38 It appears that, at the conclusion of a deer-hunt, the huntsmen used 
to stain their hands with the blood of the deer as a trophy. 



64 KING JOHN. 



ACT II. 



That sways the earth this climate overlooks, 

Before we will lay down our just-borne arms, 

We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear, 

Or add a royal number to the dead. 

Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss 

With slaughter coupled to the name of kings. 

Bast. Ha, Majesty ! how high thy glory ^9 towers, 
When the rich blood of kings is set on fire ! 
O, now doth Death line his dead chops with steel ; 
The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs ; 
And now he feasts, mousing ^^ the flesh of men. 
In undetermined differences of kings. — 
Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus ? 
Cry havoc,^^ Kings ! back to the stained field. 
You equal-potent, fiery-kindled spirits ! 
Then let confusion of one part confirm 
The other's peace ; till then, blows, blood, and death ! 

K.John. Whose party do the townsmen yet admit? 

K. Phi. Speak, citizens, for England; who's your King? 

I Cit The King of England, when we know the King. 

jST. Phi. Know him in us, that here hold up his right. 

K.Johfi. In us, that are our own great deputy, 
And bear possession of our person here ; 
Lord of our presence. Anglers, and of you. 

I Cit. A greater Power than ye denies all this j 

39 Glory for glorying, that is, vaunting ; one of the senses of the Latin 
gloria. A frequent usage. 

^^ To mouse is to tear in pieces, or to devour eagerly. So in Dekker's 
Wonderful Year, 1603 : " Whilst Troy was swilling sack and sugar, and 
fnohsijig fat venison, the mad Greeks made bonfires of their houses." See, 
also, A Midsmnmer , page 107, note 19. 

41 Crying havoc / in battle, was a signal for indiscriminate massacre, or 
for giving no quarter. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 65 

And, till it be undoubted, we do lock 
Our former scruple in our strong-barr'd gates ; 
King'd of our fears/"-^ until our fears, resolved,^^ 
Be by some certain king purged and deposed. 

Bas^. By Heaven, these scroyles '^^ of Anglers flout you, 
Kings, 
And stand securely on their battlements, 
As in a theatre, whence they gape and point 
At your industrious scenes and acts of death. 
Your royal presences be ruled by me : 
Do like the mutines ^^ of Jerusalem, 
Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend 
Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town : 
By east and west let France and England mount 
Their battering cannon, charged to the mouths, 
Till their soul-fearing^^ clamours have brawl'd down 
The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city : 
I'd play incessantly upon these jades. 
Even till unfenced desolation 
Leave them as naked as the vulgar air. 
That done, dissever your united strengths^, 

■*2 " King'd ofovcc fears " is the same as ruled by our fears. We have a 
like expression in King Henry V., ii. 3 : " For, my good liege, she [England] 
is so idly king'd." 

43 I am not quite sure as to the sense of resolved here. Sometimes the 
word, in Shakespeare, means to inform, assure, or satisfy ; sometimes to 
melt or dissolve. The latter seems to accord best with the sense of purged 
and deposed. 

44 Scroyles is scurvy rogues ; from the French escrouelles. 

^^ Mutines for mutineers; as \tx Hamlet, \. 2: " Methought I lay worse 
than the mutines in the bilboes." The allusion is probably to the combina- 
tion of the civil factions in Jerusalem when the city was threatened by Titus. 

46 ^ovX-appalling. The Poet often uses the verb to fear in the sense of 
making afraid or scaring. 



66 'kiISTG JOHN. ^ ACT IL 

And part your mingled colours once again ; 

Turn face to face, and bloody point to point ; 

Then, in a moment, Fortune shall cull forth 

Out of one side her happy minion, 

To whom in favour she shall give the day, 

And kiss him with a glorious victory. 

How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?'*'^ 

Smacks it not something of the policy ? 

K.John. Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads, 
I like it well. — France, shall we knit our powers, 
And lay this Anglers even with the ground ; 
Then, after, fight who shall be king of it ? 

Bast. An if thou hast the mettle of a king, — 
Being wrong'd, as we are, by this peevish town, — 
Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery. 
As we will ours, against these saucy walls ; 
And, when that we have dash'd them to the ground, 
Why, then defy each other, and, pell-mell. 
Make work upon ourselves, for Heaven or Hell. 

K. Phi. Let it be so. — Say, where will you assault? 

K. Johii. We from the west will send destruction 
Into this city's bosom. 

Aust. I from the north. 

K. Phi. Our thunders from the south 

Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town. 

Bast. \^Aside^ O prudent discipline ! From north to 
south^ 



47 states here may be equivalent to thrones, the chairs of state being put 
for the occupiers of them. Sometimes state is used for person of high rank ; 
as in Cymbeline, iii. 4 : " Kings, queens, and states'.' — The meaning of the 
next line appears to be, " Is there not some smack of policy, or of politic 
shrewdness, in this counsel ? " 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 6j 

Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth : 
I'll stir them to it. — Come, away, away ! 

I Cit. Hear us, great Kings : vouchsafe awhile to stay, 
And I shall show you peace and fair-faced league : 
Win you this city without stroke or wound j 
Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds, 
That here come sacrifices for the field : 
Persever not, but hear me, mighty Kings. 

K.John. Speak on, with favour; we are bent to hear. 

I Cit. That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch, 
Is niece to England : ^^ look upon the years 
Of Louis the Dauphin and that lovely maid : 
If lusty love should go in quest of beauty, 
Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch ? 
If zealous love should go in search of virtue. 
Where should he find it purer than in Blanch ? 
If love ambitious sought a match of birth, 
Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch? 
Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth. 
Is the young Dauphin every way complete : 
If not complete, then say he is not she ; 
And she, again, wants nothing, to name want. 
If want it be, but that she is not he : ^^ 
He is the half part of a blessed man, 
Left to be finished by such a she \ 
And she a fair divided excellence. 
Whose fulness of perfection lies in him. 



48 Blanch was in fact daughter to Alphonso IX., King of Castile, and 
niece to King John by his sister Eleanor. 

49 The sense appears to be, " And she, again, wants nothing, but that she 
is not he; if there be any thing wanting in her, and if it be right to speak 
of want in connection with her." 



68 KING JOHN. ACT II. 

O, two such silver currents, when they join, 

Do glorify the banks that bound them in ; 

And two such shores to two such streams made one, 

Two such controlling bounds shall you be, Kings, 

To these two Princes, if you marry them. 

This union shall do more than battery can 

To our fast-closed gates ; for, at this match. 

With swifter spleen than powder can enforce. 

The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope. 

And give you entrance : but, without this match, 

The sea enraged is not half so deaf, 

Lions more confident, mountains and rocks 

More free from motion ; ^^ no, not Death himself 

In mortal fury half so peremptory. 

As we to keep this city. 

Basf. Here's a flaw,^i 

That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death 
Out of his rags ! Here's a large mouth, indeed, 
That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas ; 
Talks as familiarly of roaring lions 
As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs ! 
What cannoneer begot this lusty blood ? 
He speaks plain cannon, fire and smoke and bounce j ^^ 



50 If the text be right, the meaning is, " Lions are noi more confident, nor 
mountains and rocks more free from motion." 

51 Flaw, in one of its senses, signifies a violent gust of wind. So in 
Smith's Sea Grammar, i62y: " Kfiaw of wind is a gust, which is very vio- 
lent upon a sudden, but quickly endeth." Shakespeare has it repeatedly 
so ; as in Coriolanus, v. 3 : " Like a great sea-mark, standing every ^aw, and 
saving those that eye thee." 

52 Bou7ice is the old word for the report of a gun, the same as our bang. 
So in 2 Henry the Fourth, iii. 2 : " There was a little quiver fellow, and 'a 
would manage you his piece thus : rah, tah, tah, would 'a say ; bounce would 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 69 

He gives the bastinado with his tongue : 
Our ears are cudgell'd ; not a word of his 
But buffets better than a fist of France : 
Zounds, I was never so bethump'd with words 
Since I first call'd my brother's father dad. 

Eli. \_Aside to John.] Son, list to this conjunction, make 
this match; 
Give with our niece a dowry large enough : 
For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie 
Thy now-unsured assurance to the crown, 
That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe 
The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit. 
I see a yielding in the looks of France ; 
Mark, how they whisper : urge them while their souls 
Are capable ^^ of this ambition. 
Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath 
Of soft petitions, pity, and remorse. 
Cool and congeal again to what it was. 

I Cit. Why answer not the double Majesties 
This friendly treaty of our threaten'd town ? 

K. Phi. Speak England first, that hath been forward first 
To speak unto this city : — what say you ? 

K.Joh^i. If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son, 
Can in this book of beauty read / love, 
Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen : 
For Anjou, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers, 
And all that we upon this side the sea — 
Except this city now by us besieged — 

'a say ; and away again would 'a go," &c. — To give the bastinado is to beat 
with a cudgel ; the same as to baste, or to give a basting. 

53 Capable here is equivalent to susceptible. So in the next scene : " For 
I am sick, and capable of fears." See, also, Richard III., page 95, note 3. 



yO KING JOHN. ACT II. 

Find liable to our crown and dignity, 

Shall gild her bridal bed ; and make her rich 

In titles, honours, and promotions, 

As she in beauty, education, blood, 

Holds hand with any princess of the world. 

K. Phi. What say'st thou, boy ? look in the lady's face. 

Lou. I do, my lord ; and in her eye I find 
A wonder, or a wonderous miracle. 
The shadow of myself form'd in her eye ; 
Which, being but the shadow of your son. 
Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow : 
I do protest I never loved myself. 
Till now infixed I beheld myself 
Drawn in the flattering table ^^ of her eye. 

[ Whispers with Blanch. 

Bast. \^Aside7\ Drawn in the flattering table of her eye ! 
Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brov/ ! 
And quarter'd in her heart ! he doth espy 
Himself love's traitor : this is pity now. 
That, hang'd' and drawn and quarter'd, there should be 
In such a love so vfle a lout as he. 

Blanch. My uncle's will in this respect is mine : 
If he see aught in you that makes him hke. 
That any thing he sees, which moves his liking, 
I can with ease translate it to my will ; 
Or if you will, to speak more properly, 
I will enforce it easily to my love. — 
Further I will not flatter you, my lord, 
That all I see in you is worthy love. 
Than this, that nothing do I see in you, 

S4 Table for the board or canvas on which a picture is made. 



SCENE I. KING. JOHN. 71 

Though churUsh thoughts themselves should be your 

judge, 
That I can find should merit any hate. 

K.John. What say these young ones? — What say you, 
my niece ? 

Blanch. That she is bound in honour still to do 
W^hat you in wisdom still vouchsafe to say. 

K. John. Speak, then, Prince Dauphin j can you love this 
lady? 

Lou. . Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love ; 
For I do love her most unfeignedly. 

K. John. Then do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine, 
Poictiers, and Anjou, these five provinces, 
With her to thee ; and this addition more. 
Full thirty thousand marks of English coin. — 
Philip of France, if thou be pleased withal, 
Command thy son and daughter to join hands. 

K. Phi. It hkes^^ us well. — Young Princes, close your 
hands. 

Aust. And your lips too ; for I am well assured 
That I did so when I was first afhed.^^ 

K. Phi. Now, citizens of Anglers, ope your gates, 
Let in that amity which you have made ; 
For at Saint Mary's chapel presently 
The rites of marriage shall be solemnized. — 
Is not the Lady Constance in this troop? 
I know she is not ; for this match made up 
Her presence would have interrupted much : 
Where is she and her son ? tell me, who knows. 

55 Likes was continually used thus, in all sorts of writing, for suits or 
pleases. 

56 Affied is betrothed or affianced. 



72 KING JOHN. ACT ii. 

Lou. She's sad and passionate ^^ at your Highness' tent. 

K. Phi. And, by my faith, this league that we have made 
Will give her sadness very little cure. — 
Brother of England, how may we content 
This widow' d lady ? In her right we came ; 
Which we, God knows, have turn'd another way. 
To our own vantage. 

K. John. We will heal up all \ 

For we'll create young Arthur Duke of Bretagne 
And Earl of Richmond ; and this rich fair to\vn 
We make him lord of. — Call the Lady Constance ; 
Some speedy messenger bid her repair 
To our solemnity : — I trust we shall, 
If not fill up the measure of her will, 
Yet in some measure satisfy her so 
That we shall stop her exclamation. 
Go we, as well as haste will suifer us. 
To this unlook'd-for, unprepared pomp. 

\_Exeu7it all but the Bastard. Tlie Citizens 

retire from the walls. 

Bast. Mad world ! mad kings ! mad composition ! 
John, to stop Authur's title in the whole, 
Hath willingly departed ^^ with a part; 
And France, — whose armour conscience buckled on. 
Whom zeal and charity brought to the field 
As God's own soldier, — rounded ^^ in the ear 



57 Passionate here means perturbed or agitated. So in The True Tragedy 
of Richard Duke of York, 1600 : " Tell me, good madam, why is your Grace 
so passionate of late ? " 

58 Departed in the sense oi parted, the two being formerly synonymous, 

59 To round, or rown, was sometimes used for to whisper. So in The 
Examinatiofi of William Thorpe, 1407 : " And the archbishop called then 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. "Jl 

With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil ; 

That broker,^^ that still breaks the pate of faith ; 

That daily break-vow ; he that wins of all, 

Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids, — 

Who having no external thing to lose 

But the word maid^ cheats the poor maid of that ; 

That smooth-faced gentleman, tickling commodity,^^ — 

Commodity, the bias of the world ; 

The world, who of itself is peised^'^ well, 

Made to run even upon even ground. 

Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias. 

This sway of motion, this commodity, 

Makes it take head from all indifferency,^^ 

From all direction, purpose, course, intent : 

And this same bias, this commodity. 

This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word, 

Clapp'd on the outward eye ^^ of fickle France, 

Hath drawn him from his own determined aim. 

From a resolved and honourable war. 

To a most base and vile-concluded peace. — 

to him a clerke, and r owned with him : and that clerke went forth, and soone 
brought in the constable of Saltwood castle, and the archbishop row?ied a 
good while with him." See, also, The%Vinter' s Tale, page 50, note 31. 

60 A broker was properly a pander or pimp ; hence, sometimes, as here, 
a dissembler or cheat. 

61 Commodity Yi^xe. is advantage, profit, ox interest. So, in 2 Henry IV., 
i. 2, Falstaff says, " A good wit will make use of any thing : I will turn dis- 
eases to commodity." 

62 Peised is balanced or poised. To peise is, properly, to weigh. 

63 Indifferency in the sense of impartiality. The world, swayed by inter- 
est, is compared to a biassed bowl, which is deflected from an impartial 
course by the load in one side. 

64 The allusion to the game of bowls is still kept up. Staunton says, 
" The aperture on one side which contains the bias or weight that inclines 
the bowl, in running, from the direct course, was sometimes called the eye." 



74 KING JOHN. ACT III. 

And why rail I on this commodity ? 

But for because he hath not woo'd me yet : 

Not that I have the power to clutch my hand, 

When his fair angels ^^ would salute my palm ; 

But for my hand, as unattempted yet, 

Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich. 

Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail, 

And say. There is no sin but to be rich : 

And being rich, my virtue then shall be 

To say. There is no vice but beggary : 

Since kings break faith upon commodity. 

Gain, be my lord, — for I will worship thee ! \^Exit. 

4- 



ACT III. 

Scene I. — France. The French King's Tent. 

Enter Constance, Arthur, a7id Salisbury. 

Const. Gone to be married ! gone to swear a peace ! 
False blood to false blood join'd ! gone to be friends ! 
Shall Louis have Blanch? and* Blanch those provinces? 
It is not so ; thou hast misspoke, misheard ; 
Be well advised, tell o'er thy tale again : 
It cannot be ; thou dost but say 'tis so : 
I trust I may not trust thee ; for thy word 
Is but the vain breath of a common man : 

65 Angel was the name of a gold coin. See Merchant, page 124, note 7. — 
The sense of the passage is, " I rail at bribery, not because I have the virtue 
to keep my hand closed when a bribe tempts me to open it, but because. I 
am as yet untempted." 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 75 

Believe me, I do not believe thee, man ; 

I have a king's oath to the contrary. 

Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me. 

For I am sick, and capable of fears ; 

Oppress 'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears; 

A widow, husbandless, subject to fears ; 

A woman, naturally born to fears ; 

And, though thou now confess thou didst but jest. 

With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,i 

But they will quake and tremble all this day. 

What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head ? 

Why dost thou look so sadly on my son ? 

What means that hand upon that breast of thine? 

Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,^ 

Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds ? 

Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words ? 

Then speak again ; not all thy former tale, 

But this one word, whether thy tale be true. 

Sal. As true as I believe you think them false 
That give you cause to prove my saying true. 

Const. O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow. 
Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die ; 
And let belief and life encounter so 
As doth the fury of two desperate men. 
Which in the very meeting fall and die ! — 
Louis marry Blanch ! O boy, then where art thou ? 

1 To take truce is old language for to make peace. So in Romeo and 
Juliet, iii. i : " Could not take truce with the unruly spleen of Tybalt deaf 
to peace." 

2 Lamentable for lamenting ; the passive form with the active sense, 
according to the old usage which I have often noted. See Much Ado, page 
63, note II. — Rheum was used indifferently for tears, and for the secretions 
of the nose and mouth. 



"jG KING JOHN. 



ACT III. 



France friend with England ! what becomes of me ? — 
Fellow, be gone : I cannot brook thy sight ; 
This news hath made thee a most ugly man. 

Sal. What other harm have I, good lady, done, 
But spoke the harm that is by others done ? 

Const. Which harm within itself so heinous is, 
As it makes harmful all that speak of it. 

Arth. I do beseech you, madam, be content. 

Const. If thou, that bidd'st me be content, wert grim, 
Ugly, and slanderous to thy mother's womb, 
Full of unpleasing blots and sightless ^ stains, 
Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious, 
Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending marks, 
I would not care, I then would be content ; 
For then I should not love thee ; no, nor thou 
Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown. 
But thou art fair ; and at thy birth, dear boy, 
Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great : 
Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast 
And with the half-blown rose : but Fortune, O ! 
She is corrupted, changed, and won from thee ; 
She adulterates hourly with thine uncle John ; 
And with her golden hand hath pluck' d on France 
To tread down fair respect of sovereignty. 
And made his majesty the bawd to theirs. 
France is a bawd to Fortune and King John, 
That harlot Fortune, that usurping John ! — 
Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forsworn ? 

3 Sightless for unsightly. The Poet has a like use of several other words ; 
as in King Richard 11. , iv. i : "The bloody office of his timeless end." 
— Swart, in the next line, is dark or swarthy, axid prodigious in the sense of 
misshapen or monstrous. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 77 

Envenom him with words ; or get thee gone, 
And leave those woes alone which I alone 
Am bound to under-bear. 

Sal. Pardon me, madam, 

I may not go without you to the Kings. 

Const. Thou mayst, thou shalt ; I will not go with thee : 
I will instruct my sorrows to be proud ; 
For grief is proud, and makes his owner stout.^ 
To me, and to the state of my great grief, 
Let kings assemble ; for my griefs so great, 
That no supporter but the huge firm Earth 
Can hold it up : here I and sorrow sit ; 
Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it. 

\_Seats herself on the ground. 

Enter King John, King Philip, Louis, Blanch, Elinor, the 
Bastard, Austria, and Attendants. 

K. Phi. 'Tis true, fair daughter ; and this blessed day 
Ever in France shall be kept festival : 
To solemnize this day the glorious Sun 
Stays in his course, and plays the alchemist. 
Turning with splendour of his precious eye 
The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold : 
The yearly course that brings this day about 
Shall never see it but a hoHday. 

Const. \_Risi7ig.~\ A wicked day, and not a holy day ! 
What hath this day deserved ? what hath it done, 

4 stout in a moral sense ; that is, proud. — " Distress," says Johnson, 
" while there remains any prospect of relief, is weak and flexible ; but, when 
no succour remains, is fearless and stubborn : angry alike at those that 
injure, and at those that do not help ; careless to please where nothing can 
be gained, and fearless to offend when there is nothing further to be 
dreaded." 



y8 KING JOHN. ACT III. 

That it in golden letters should be set 
Among the high tides in the calendar ? ^ 
Nay, rather turn this day out of the week, 
This day of shame, oppression, perjury : 
Or, if it must stand still, let teeming wives 
Pray that their burdens may not fall this day. 
Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd : ^ 
But''' on this day let seamen fear no wreck ; 
No bargains break that are not this day made : 
This day, all things begun come to ill end ; 
Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change ! 

X. Phi. By Heaven, lady, you shall have no cause 
To curse the fair proceedings of this day : 
Have I not pawn 'd to you my majesty? 

Const. You have beguiled me with a counterfeit 
Resembling majesty ; which, being touch'd and tried, 
Proves valueless : you are forsworn, forsworn ; 
You came in arms to spill mine enemies' blood, 
But now in arms you strengthen it with yours : 
The grappling vigour and rough frown of war 
Is cold in amity and painted peace, 
And our oppression hath made up this league. — 
Arm, arm, you Heavens, against these perjured Kings ! 
A widow cries ; be husband to me. Heavens ! 
Let not the hours of this ungodly day 
Wear out the day in peace ; but, ere sunset. 
Set armed discord 'twixt these perjured Kings ! 
Hear me, O, hear me ! 

5 " High tides of the calendar " are thnes set down in the almanac to be 
specially observed ; days marked for public honour and celebration. 

6 Lest their hopes be frustrated by monstrous births. 

7 But in the exceptive sense ; from be out. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 79 

Aust Lady Constance, peace ! 

Const. War ! war ! no peace ! peace is to me a war. 
O Limoges ! O Austria ! thou dost shame 
That bloody spoil : thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward ! 
Thou little valiant, great in villainy ! • 
Thou ever strong upon the stronger side ! 
Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight 
But when her humorous ladyship is by 
To teach thee safety ! thou art perjured too. 
And soothest up greatness. What a fool wert thou, 
A ramping fool, to brag, and stamp, and swear, 
Upon my party ! ^ Thou cold-'blooded slave. 
Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side ? 
Been sworn my soldier? bidding me depend 
Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength ? 
And dost thou now fall over to my foes ? 
Thou wear a lion's hide ! doff it for shame. 
And hang a calf 's-skin on those recreant limbs. 

Ausf. O, that a man should ^ speak those words to me ! 

Bast And hang a calf 's-skin on those recreant limbs. 

AusL Thou darest not say so, villain, for thy life. 

Bast And hang a calf 's-skin on those recreant limbs. 

K.John. We like not this ; thou dost forget thyself. 

K. Phi. Here comes the holy legate of the Pope. 

Enter Pandulph, attended. 
Band. Hail, you anointed deputies of Heaven ! 

8 Party for part ; that is, side. The two words were often used inter- 
changeably, 

9 Should for would ; the two being often used indiscriminately. Con- 
stance means that Austria is a coward, and that a calf s-skin would fit him 
better than a lion's. 



80 KING JOHN. ACT III. 

To thee, King John, my holy errand is. 

I Pandulph, of fair Milan Cardinal, 

And from Pope Innocent the legate here, 

Do in his name religiously demand. 

Why thou against the Church, our holy mother, 

So wilfully dost spurn, and, force perforce,!^ 

Keep Stephen Langton, chosen Archbishop 

Of Canterbury, from that holy see ? 

This, in our foresaid holy father's name, 

Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee. 

K.John. What earthly name to interrogatories 
Can task the free breath of a^sacred kingp^^ 
Thou canst not. Cardinal, devise a name 
So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous. 
To charge me to an answer, as the Pope. 
Tell him this tale ; and from the mouth of England 
Add thus much more, That no Italian priest 
Shall tithe or toll in our dominions ; 
But as we, under Heaven, are supreme head, 
So, under Him, that great supremacy, 
Where we do reign, we will alone uphold, 
Without th' assistance of a mortal hand : 
So tell the Pope ; all reverence set apart 
To him and his usurp'd authority.^^ 

K. Phi. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this. 

10 Force zx^^l perforce were often thus used together, merely to intensify 
the expression. Cotgrave explains it, " of necessitie, will he nill he, in spite 
of his teeth." 

11 The order is, " What earthly name can task to interrogatories the free 
breath," &c. ; meaning, simply, " what earthly power can hold a free king 
responsible, or call him to account ? " 

12 " All reverence to him and his usurp'd authority being set apart " ; that 
is, cast off. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 8 1 

K. John. Though you, and all the kings of Christendom, 
Are led so grossly by this meddling priest, 
Dreading the curse that money may buy out ; 
And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust. 
Purchase corrupted j)ardon of a man. 
Who in that sale sells pardon from himself; 
Though you and all the rest, so grossly led, 
This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish ; 
Yet I, alone, alone do me oppose 
Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes. 

Fand. Then, by the lawful power that I have, 
Thou shalt stand cursed and excommunicate : 
And blessed shall he be that doth revolt 
From his allegiance to an heretic ; 
And meritorious shall that hand be call'd, 
Can6nized, and worshipp'd as a saint, 
That takes away by any secret course 
Thy hateful life. 

Co7ist. O, lawful let it be 

That I have room with Rome to curse awhile ! 
Good father Cardinal, cry thou amen 
To my keen curses ; for without my wrong 
There is no tongue hath power to curse him right. 

Fand. There's law and warrant, lady, for my curse. 

Const And for mine too : when law can do no right, 
Let it be lawful that law bar no wTong : 
Law cannot give my child his kingdom here ; 
For he that holds his kingdom holds the law ; 
Therefore, since law itself is perfect wrong, 
How can the law forbid my tongue to curse ? 

Fand. Philip of France, on peril of a curse. 
Let go .the hand of that arch-heretic ; 



82 KING JOHN. ACT III. 

And raise the power of France upon his head, 
Unless he do submit himself to Rome. 

£/i. Look'st thou pale, France ? do not let go thy hand. 

Const. Look to that, devil ; lest that France repent. 
And by disjoining hands, Hell lose a soul. 

Aust. King Philip, listen to the Cardinal. 

Bast. And hang a calfs-skin on his recreant limbs. 

Aust. Well, ruffian, I must pocket up these wrongs. 
Because — 

Bast. Your breeches best may carry them. 

K.Joh^i. Philip, what say'st thou to the Cardinal? . 

Const. What should he say, but as the Cardinal? 

Lou. Bethink you, father ; for the difference 
Is, purchase of a heavy curse from Rome, 
Or the light loss of England for a friend : 
Forgo the easier. 

Blanch. That's the curse of Rome. 

Const. O Louis, stand fast ! the Devil tempts thee here 
In likeness of a new-uptrimmed bride. 

Blanch. The Lady Constance speaks not from her faith. 
But from her need. 

Const. O, if thou grant my need, 

W^hich only lives but by the death of faith. 
That need must needs infer this principle. 
That faith would live again by death of need ! 
O, then, tread down my need, and faith mounts up ; 
Keep my need up, and faith is trodden down ! 

K. John. The King is moved, and answers not to this. 

Const. O, be removed from him, and answer well ! 

Aust. Do so, King Philip ; hang no more in doubt. 

Bast. Hang nothing but-a calfs-skin, most sweet lout. 

K. Phi. I am perplex'd, and know not what to say. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 83 

Fund. What canst thou say but will perplex thee more, 
If thou stand excommunicate and cursed ? 

K. Phi. Good reverend father, make my person yours, 
And tell me how you would bestow yourself. 
This royal hand and mine are newly knit. 
And the conjunction of our inward souls 
Married in league, coupled and link'd together 
With all religious strength of sacred vows ; 
The latest breath that gave the sound of words 
Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love 
Between our kingdoms and our royal selves ; 
And even before this truce, but new before, — 
No longer than we well could wash our hands, 
To clap this royal bargain up of peace, — 
Heaven knows, they were besmear'd and overstain'd 
With slaughter's pencil, where revenge did paint 
The fearful difference of incensed kings : 
And shall these hands, so lately purged of blood, 
So newly join'd in love, so strong in both,!^ 
Unyoke this seizure and this kind regreet ? ^^ 
Play fast and loose with faith? so jest with Heaven, 
Make such unconstant children of ourselves. 
As now again to snatch our palm from palm ; 
Unswear faith sworn ; and on the marriage-bed 
Of smiling peace to march a bloody host, 
And make a riot on the gentle brow 
Of true sincerity? O, holy sir. 
My reverend father, let it not be so ! 
Out of your grace, devise, ordain, impose 



13 So Strong both in deeds of h\oo6. and in deeds o/\ove. 

14 Re£[reet here means interchans^e of salutation. 



84 KING JOHN. ACT III. 

Some gentle order ; then we shall be blest 
To do your pleasure, and continue friends. 

Pand. All form is formless, order orderless, 
Save what is opposite to England's love. 
Therefore, to arms ! be champion of our Church ! 
Or let the Church, our mother, breathe her curse, — 
A mother's curse, — on her revolting son. 
France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue, 
A chafed lion by the mortaP^ paw, 
A fasting tiger safer by the tooth, 
Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold. 

K. Phi. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith. 

Pand. So makest thou faith an enemy to faith ; 
And, like a ci^il war, sett'st oath to oath, 
Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow 
First made to Heaven, first be to Heaven perform'd ; 
That is, to be the champion of our Church ! 
What since thou sworest is sworn against thyself, 
And may not be performed by thyself : 
For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss 
Is most amiss when it is truly done ; 
And being not done, where doing tends to ill, 
The truth is then most done, not doing it ; ^^ 
The better act of purposes mistook 
Is to mistake again ; though indirect, 
Yet indirection thereby grows direct, 

15 Mortal is deadly, that which kills. Commonly so in Shakespeare. 
The venom of serpents, or snakes, was formerly supposed to be seated in 
the tongue ; and snakes in general were held to be poisonous. 

16 A specimen of argument in converso. " On the one hand, the wrong 
which you have sworn to do, is most wrong when your oath is truly per- 
formed; on the other hand, when' a proposed act tends to ill, the truth is 
most done by leaving the act undone." 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 85 

And falsehood falsehood cures ; as fire cools fire 

Within the scorched veins of one new-burn'd.^''' 

It is religion that doth make vows kept : 

But thou hast sworn against religion ; 

By which thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st, 

And makest an oath — the surety for thy truth — 

Against an oath, — the test thou art unsure.^^ 

Who swears, swears only not to be forsworn ; . 

Else what a mockery should it be to swear ! 

But thou dost swear only to be forsworn ; 

And most forsworn, to keep what thou dost swear.^^ 

Therefore, thy later vow against thy first 

Is in thyself rebellion to thyself; 

And better conquest never canst thou make 

Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts 

Against these giddy-loose suggestions : ^^ 

Upon which better part our prayers come in. 

If thou vouchsafe them ; but if not, then know 

The peril of our curses light ^^ on thee. 

So heavy as thou shalt not shake them off, 

But in despair die under their black weight. 

1'^ The Poet has several references to the mode of curing a burn by hold-, 
ing the burnt place up to the fire. So in Rojneo and Jziliet, i. 2 : " Tut, 
man, one fire burns out another's burning." And in Julius Ccesar, iii. i : 
" As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity." 

18 " By which act, thou swearest against the thing thou swearest by; 
and, by setting an oath against an oath, thou makest that which is the surety 
for thy truth the proof that thou art untrue." See Critical Notes. 

19 That is, " in keeping that which thou dost swear." An instance of the 
infinitive used gerundively. See Julius Ccesar, page 137, note 2. 

20 Suggestions, as usual in Shakespeare, for teinptations or seductions. 
See The, Tempest, page 89, note 53. 

21 An instance of false concord ; the verb agreeing with the nearest sub- 
stantive, curses, instead of with the proper subject, /^W/. 



86 KING JOHN. ACT III. 

Aiisf. Rebellion, flat rebellion ! 

Bas^. Will't not be ? 

Will not a calf s-skin stop that mouth of thine ? 

Lou. Father, to arms ! 

Blanch. Upon thy wedding-day? 

Against the blood that thou hast married ? 
What, shall our feast be kept with slaughter'd men ? 
Shall braying trumpets and loud churKsh drums — 
Clamours of Hell — be measures to our pomp ? 
O husband, hear me ! — ah, alack, how new 
Is husband in my mouth ! — even for that name, 
Which till this time my tongue did ne'er pronounce, 
Upon my knee, 1 beg, go not to arms 
Against mine uncle. 

Const. O, upon my knee. 

Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee, 
Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom 
Forethought by Heaven ! 

Blanch. Now shall I see thy love : what motive may 
Be stronger with thee than the name of wife ? 

Const. That which upholdeth him that thee upholds. 
His honour : — O, thine honour, Louis, thine honour ! 

Lou. I muse ^^ your Majesty doth seem so cold. 
When such profound respects do pull you on. 

Pand. I will denounce a curse upon his head. 

K. Phi. Thou shalt not need. — England, I'll fall from 
thee. 

Const. O fair return of banish'd majesty ! 

Eli. O foul revolt of French inconstancy ! 



22 Muse for wonde7\ Often so. — Respects, in the next line, is considera- 
tions ; a frequent usage. See Much Ado, page 63, note 10. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. Sy 

K.John. France, thou shalt rue this hour within this 
hour. 

Bast. Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time, 
Is it as he will ? well, then, France shall rue. 

Blanch. The Sun's o'ercast with blood : fair day, adieu ! 
Which is the side that I must go withal? 
I am with both : each army hath a hand ; 
And in their rage, I having hold of both. 
They whirl asunder and dismember me. — 
Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win ; — 
Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose ; — 
Father, I may not wish the fortune thine ; — 
Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive : — 
Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose ; 
Assured loss before the match be play'd. 

Lou. Lady, with me ; with me thy fortune lies. 

Blanch. There where my fortune lives, there my life dies. 

K.John. Cousin, go draw our puissance together. — 

\_Exit Bastard. 
France, I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath ; 
A rage whose heat hath this condition. 
That nothing can allay't, nothing but blood. 
The best and dearest-valued blood of France. 

K. Phi. Thy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn 
To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire : 
Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy. 

K.John. No more than he that threats. — To arms let's 
hie ! \Exeuntj severally, the English and French 

Kings, ^'c. 



N 



88 KING JOHN. ACT III. 

Scene II. — T/ie Same. Plains near Angiei's. 

AlarumSy excursions. Enter the Bastard, with Austria's 

head. 

Bast. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot ; 
Some fiery devil hovers in the sky, 
And pours down mischief. — Austria's head lie there, 
While Philip breathes. 

Enter King John, Arthur, and Hubert. 

K. John. Hubert, keep thou this boy. — Philip, make up : ^ 
My mother is assailed in our tent. 
And ta'en, I fear. 

Bast. My lord, I rescued her ; 

Her Highness is in safety, fear you not : 
But on, my liege ; for very little pains 
Will bring this labour to an happy end. \_Exeunt. 

Scene III. — The Same. Another Part of the Plains. 

Alarums, exc7i7'sio7is , retreat. Enter King John, Elinor, 
Arthur, the Bastard, Hubert, and Lords. 

K.John. \_To Elinor.] So shall it be; your Grace shall 

stay behind, 
More strongly guarded. — \To Arthur.] Cousin, look not 

sad : 
Thy grandam loves thee ; and thy uncle will 
As dear be to thee as thy father was. 



1 Make up is an old military term for advance. — Here John calls the 
Bastard Phihp, notwithstanding he has knighted him as Sir Richard, and 
has before called him by the latter name. 



SCENE III. KING JOHN. 89 

Arth. O, this will make my mother die with grief ! 

K.John. \_To the Bast.] Cousin, away for England ; haste 
before : 
And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags 
Of hoarding abbots ; set at liberty 
Imprison'd angels : ^ the fat ribs of peace 
Must by the hungry war be fed upon : 
Use our commission in his utmost force. 

Bast Bell, book, and candle ^ shall not drive me back, 
When gold and silver becks me to come on. 
I leave your Highness. — Grandam, I will pray — 
If ever I remember to be holy — 
For your fair safety ; so, I kiss your hand. 

Eli. Farewell, gentle cousin. 

K.Johh. Coz, farewell. 

\Exit Bastard. 

Eli. Come hither, little kinsman ; hark, a word. 

\Takes Arthur aside. 

K.John. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert, 
We owe thee much ! within this wall of flesh 
There is a soul counts thee her creditor. 
And with advantage means to pay thy love : 
And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath 
Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished. 

2 The gold coin so named. See page 74, note 65. 

3 Alluding to the old forms used in pronouncing the final curse of excom- 
munication. On such occasions, the bishop and clergy went into the church, 
with a cross borne before them, and with several waxen tapers lighted. At 
the climax of the cursing, the tapers were extinguished, with a prayer that 
the soul of the excommunicate might be " given over utterly to the power 
of the fiend, as this candle is now quenched and put out." What with these 
things, and what with the tolling of bells and the using of books, it was an 
appalling ceremony. 



90 KING JOHN. 



ACT III. 



Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say, — 
But I will fit it with some better time. 
By Heaven, Hubert, I'm almost ashamed 
To say what good respect I have of thee. 

Hub. I am much bounden to your Majesty. 

K. John. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet : 
But thou shalt have ; and, creep time ne'er so slow, 
Yet it shall come for me to do thee good. 
I had a thing to say, — but let it go : 
The Sun is in the heaven, and the proud day, 
Attended with the pleasures of the world, 
Is all too wanton and too full of gauds 
To give me audience : if the midnight bell 
Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth, 
Sound one '* into the drowsy ear of night ; 
If this same were a churchyard where we stand. 
And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs ; 
Or if that surly spirit, melancholy. 
Had baked thy blood, and made it heavy-thick. 
Which else runs tickling up and down the veins. 
Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes. 
And strain their cheeks to idle merriment, 
A passion hateful to my purposes ; 
Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes. 
Hear me without thine ears, and make reply 
Without a tongue, using conceit alone. 
Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words ; 

4 There is an apparent discrepancy here between midnight and sound 
07te. But such notes of inexactness were not uncommon in all sorts of 
writing. So in The Faiiious History of Doctor Faustus, quoted by Dyce : 
" It happened that, betweene twelve and one a clocke at midnight, there 
blew a mighty storme of winde against the house." 



SCENE III. KING JOHN. 91 

Then, in despite of brooded ^ watchful day, 

I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts : 

But, ah, I will not ! yet I love thee well ; » 

And, by my troth, I think thou lovest me well. 

Hub. So well, that what you bid me undertake, 
Though that my death were adjunct to my act, 
By Heaven, I'd do't. 

K. John. Do not I know thou wouldst? 

Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye 
On yon young boy : I'll tell thee what, my friend. 
He is a very serpent in my way ; 
And, wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread, 
He lies before me : dost thou understand me ? 
Thou art his keeper. 

Hub. And I'll keep him so, 

That he shall not offend your Majesty. 

K. John. Death. 

Hub. My lord? 

K. John. A grave. 

Hub. He shall not live. 

K. John. Enough. 

I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee ; 
Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee : 
Remember. — Madam, fare you well : 
I'll send those powers o'er to your Majesty. 

Eli. My blessing go with thee ! 

K. John. For England, cousin, go : 

Hubert shall be your man, t' attend on you 
AVith all true duty. — On toward Calais, ho ! \_Exeunt. 

5 Brooded for brooding, under the old indiscriminate use of active and 
passive forms. See Te7npest, page 135, note 10. — Milton has a like expres- 
sion in his L Allegro : " Find out some uncouth cell, where brooding darkness 
spreads his jealous wings." 



92 KING JOHN. ACT III. 

Scene IV. — The Same. The French King's Tent 
.Enter King Philip, Louis, Pandulph, aiid Attendants. 

K. Phi. So, by a roaring tempest on the flood, 
A whole armado of convented ^ sail 
Is scatter'd and disjoin'd from fellowship. 

Pand. Courage and comfort ! all shall yet go well. 

K. Phi. What can go well, when we have run so ill ? 
Are we not beaten ? Is not Angiers lost ? 
Arthur ta'en prisoner? divers dear friends slain? 
And bloody England into England gone, 
O'erbearing interruption, spite of France ? 

Lou. What he hath won, that hath he fortified : 
So hot a speed with such advice ^ disposed, 
Such temperate order in so fierce a course. 
Doth want example : who hath read or heard 
Of any kindred action like to this ? 

K. Phi. Well could I bear that England had this praise, 
So we could find some pattern of our shame. 
Look, who comes here ! a grave unto a soul ; 
Holding th' eternal ^ spirit, against her will, 
In the vile prison of afflicted breath. — 

Enter Constance. 

I pr'ythee, lady, go away with me. 

1 Convented is assembled or collected. — Armado \% a fleet of war. The 
word was adopted from the Spanish, and was naade familiar to EngUsh ears 
by the defeat of the Armada. 

2 Advice here is judgment or consideration. Often so. See The Mer- 
chant, page i8o, note i. 

3 Eternal for immortal. So in Othello, iii. 3 : "By the worth of man's 
eternal soul." — " The vile prison of afflicted breath " is the body, of course. 



SCENE IV. KING JOHN. 93 

Const. Lo, now ! now see the issue of your peace ! 

K. Phi. Patience, good lady ! comfort, gentle Constance ! 

Const. No, I defy 4 all counsel, all redress, 
But that which ends all counsel, true redress. 
Death, death. — O amiable lovely death ! 
Thou odoriferous stench ! sound rottenness ! 
Arise forth from the couch of lasting night, 
Thou hate and terror to prosperity, 
And I will kiss thy detestable bones ; 
And put my eyeballs in thy vanity brows ; 
And ring these fingers with thy household worms ; 
And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust ; 
And be a carrion monster like thyself : 
Come, grin on me ; and I will think thou smilest. 
And buss thee as thy wife ! Misery's love, 
O, come to me ! 

K. Phi. O fair affliction, peace ! 

Const. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry : — 
O, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth ! 
Then with a passion would I shake the world j 
And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy 
Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice, 
Which scorns a mother's invocation. 

Pand. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow. 

Const. Thou art unholy to belie me so ; 
I am not mad : this hair I tear is mine ; 
My name is Constance ; I was Geffrey's wife j 
Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost : 
I am not mad : I would to Heaven I were ! . 
For then 'tis like I should forget myself : 

* To refuse or reject is among the old senses of to defy. 



94 KING JOHN. ACT III. 

O, if I could, what grief should I forget ! 
Preach some philosophy to make me mad, 
And thou shalt be can6nized, Cardinal ; 
For, being not mad, but sensible of grief, 
My reasonable part produces reason^ 
How I may be deliver'd of these woes. 
And teaches me to kill or hang myself : 
If I were mad, I should forget my son. 
Or madly think a babe of clouts ^ were he : 
I am not mad ; too well, too well I feel 
The different plague of each calamity. 

K. Phi. Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note 
In the fair multitude of those her hairs ! 
Where but by chance a silver drop hath fall'n, 
Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends 
Do glue themselves in sociable grief; 
Like true, inseparable, faithful loves, 
Sticking together in calamity. 

Const. To England, if you will.''' 

K. Phi. Bind up your hairs. 

Const. Yes, that I will ; and wherefore will I do it ? 
I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud, 
O, that these hands could so 7'edeem my son. 
As they have given these hairs their liberty ! 
But now I envy at their liberty. 
And will again commit them to their bonds, 
Because my poor child is a prisoner. — 



5 Reason in the sense of reasoniitg or consideration. 

6 " A babe of clouts " is simply a doll, or a rag-baby. 

" It is not very apparent what Constance means by these words, or what 
object she is addressing. Perhaps, as Staunton suggests, she " apostrophizes 
her hair, as she madly tears it from its bonds." 



SCENE IV. KING JOHN. 95 

And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say 

That we shall see and know our friends in Heaven : 

If that be true, I shall see my boy again ; 

For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, 

To him that did but yesterday suspire, 

There was not such a gracious ^ creature bom. 

But now will canker-sorrow eat my bud, 

And chase the native beauty from his cheek j 

And he will look as hollow as a ghost, 

As dim and meagre as an ague-fit : 

And so he'll die; and, rising so again, 

When I shall meet him in the Court of Heaven 

I shall not know him : therefore never, never 

Must I behold my pretty Arthur more. 

Pand. You hold too heinous a respect 9 of grief. 

Const. He talks to me that never had a son. 

K. Phi, You are as fond of grief as of your child. 

Const. Grief fills the room up of my absent child. 
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me ; 
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
Remembers me of all his gracious parts. 
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form : 
Then have I reason to be fond of grief. 
Fare you well : had you such a loss as I, 
I could give better comfort than you do.^*^ 



8 Gracious in the sense of graceful or lovely. So, again, in " all his 
gracious ^^ssX^l' a little after. — The sense of the next line is, that sorrow, 
li^e a canker-worm, will eat the bud, &c. So in Romeo a?id Juliet, i. i : 
" As is the bud bit with an envious worm." See Tempest, page 71, note 96. 

9 Respect in the sense oi favour or regard. " Such a perverse and wilful 
cherishing of grief is a heinous wrong." 

10 This is a sentiment which great sorrow always dictates. Whoever 



QO KING JOHN. ACT ill. 

I will not keep this form upon my head, 

\_Dishevelling her hair. 
When there is such disorder in my wit. — 
O Lord ! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son ! 
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world ! 
My widow- comfort, and my sorrows' cure ! \_Exit. 

K, Phi. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her. \_ExiL 

Lou. There's nothing in this world can make me joy : 
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale^^ 
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man ; 
And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste, 
That it yields nought but shame and bitterness. 

Pand. Before the curing of a strong disease,\ 
Even in the instant of repair and health. 
The fit is strongest ; evils that take leave, / 

On their departure most of all show evil : 
What have you lost by losing of this day ? 

Lou. All days of glory, joy, and happiness. 

Pand. If you had won it, certainly you had. 
No, no ; when Fortune means to men most good. 
She looks upon them with a threatening eye. 
'Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost 
In this which he accounts so clearly won : 
Are not you grieved that Arthur is his prisoner? 

Lou. As heartil)^ as he is glad he hath him. 

Pand. Your mind is all as youthful as your blood. 
Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit ; 
For even the breath of what I mean to speak 

cannot help himself casts his eyes on others for assistance, and often mis- 
takes their inability for coldness. — JOHNSON. 

11 So in Psalm xc. : " For when Thou art angry all our days are gone; 
we bring our years to an end, as it were a tale that is told'' 



SCENE IV. KING JOHN. 97 

Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,i^ 
Out of the path which shall directly lead 
Thy foot to England's throne ; and therefore mark. 
John hath seized Arthur ; and it cannot be, 
That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins, 
The misplaced John should entertain one hour, 
One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest : 
A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand 
Must be as boisterously maintain' d as gain'd j 
And he that stands upon a slippery place 
Makes nice ^^ of no vile hold to stay him up : 
That John may stand, then Arthur needs must fall ; 
So be it, for it cannot be but so. 

Zoii. But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall? 

Pand. You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife, 
May then make all the claim that Arthur did. 

Lou. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did. 

Pmid. How green you are, and fresh in this old world ! 
John lays you plots ; the times conspire with you ; 
For he that steeps his safety in true blood ^^ . 

Shall find but bloody safety and untrue. 
This act, so evilly borne, ^^ shall cool the hearts 
Of all his people, and freeze up their zeal, 



12 Rub was a term at bowls, for hindrance, obstruction, any thing that 
turned the bowl from its aim. See Hamlet, page 127, note 7. 

13 To make nice is to be scrtipulous, to stick at. So the Poet uses nice 
repeatedly. And we still say, he makes no scruple of doing so and so. 

14 True blood here means the blood of the true, that is, just or rightful, 
claimant of the crown. The Poet has several instances of blood put for 
person. So in Julius Ccssar, iv. 3 : " I know young bloods look for a time 
of rest." 

15 Evilly borne is wickedly carried on or performed. The Poet often 
uses to bear in this sense. In what follows, shall for will. Often so. 



98 KING JOHN. ACT III. 

That none so small advantage shall step forth 
To check his reign, but they will cherish it : 
No natural exhalation ^^ in the sky, 
No scape of Nature, i''' no distemper'd day, 
No common wind, no customed event. 
But they will pluck away his^^ natural cause, 
And call them meteors,^^ prodigies, and signs. 
Abortives, presages, and tongues of Heaven, 
Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John. 

Lou. May be he. will not touch young Arthur's life. 



^6 The Poet sometimes uses exhalation in a way that seems strange to 
us. So in Julius CcBsar, ii. i : " The exhalations, whizzing in the air, give 
so much hght that I may read by them." As this is said amidst a fierce 
thunder-storm at night, exhalations must mean flashes of Hghtning. And 
such, or something such, may well be the meaning in the text. 

1^ " Scape of Nature " may well mean any irregularity in the course of 
things, or any event which, though natural, is uncommon enough to excite 
particular notice, such as a " distemper'd day," or an " exhalation in the sky." 
So the Poet has " 'scapes of wit " for sallies, Jllghts, or frolics of wit. And 
so Nature may be said to have her frolics, sometimes merry, and sometimes 
mad ; her weather, for instance, sometimes plays very wild pranks. It is 
observable that in the text we have a sort of climax proceeding from things 
less common to things more and more common. 

18 His for its, referring to event. The form its, though repeatedly used 
by Shakespeare, especially in his later plays, had not then the stamp of 
English currency. See page 56, note 25. — The Poet seems to have bee*!! 
specially fond of the vfoxd. pluck ior pull, tear, wrench, jerk, or drazv. 

19 Meteor'vfa.s used in much the same way as exhalation, only it bore a 
more ominous or ill-boding sense ; any strikingly black or any strikingly 
brilliant phenomenon in the heavens. So in i Henry the Fourth, v. i : 
"And be no more an exhaled meteor, a prodigy of fear, and a portent of 
broached mischief to the unborn times." Also in Romeo and yuliet, iii. 5 : 
"Yon light is not day-light: it is some meteor \h2X the Sun exhales!' And 
in V. 2, of this play : " Makes me more amazed than had I seen the vaulty 
top of heaven figured quite o'er with burning meteors." — Abortives are 
monstrous births, whether of man or beast, which were thought to portend 
calamities and disasters. 



SCENE IV. KING JOHN. 99 

But hold himself safe in his prisonment. 

Pand. O, sir, when he shall hear of your approach, 
If that young Arthur be not gone already, 
Even at that news he dies ; and then the hearts 
Of all his people shall revolt from him. 
And kiss the lips of unacquainted ^^ change ; 
And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath 
Out of the bloody fingers' ends of John. 
Methinks I see this hurly^i all on foot : 
And, O, what better matter breeds for you 
Than I have named ! The bastard Falconbridge 
Is now in England, ransacking the Church, 
Offending charity : if but a dozen French 
Were there in arms, they would be as a call^^ 
To train ten thousand English to their side ; 
Or, as a little snow, tumbled about, 
Anon becomes a mountain.^-^ O noble Dauphin, 
Go with me to the King : 'tis wonderful 
What may be wrought out of their discontent, 
Now that their souls are topful of offence : 
For England go : I will whet on the King. 

Lou. Strong reasons make strong actions : let us go : 
If you say ay, the King will not say no. \_Exeunt. 

20 Unacquainted for unaccustomed or extraordinary. 

21 Hurly is tumult, commotion ; like hurly-burly. 

22 An allusion to the reed, or pipe, termed a bird-call ; or to the practice 
of bird-catchers, who, in laying their nets, place a caged bird over them, 
which they term the call-bird or bird-call, to lure the wild birds to the 
snare. — Staunton. 

23 Bacon, in his History of Henry VII., speaking of Simnel's march, re- 
marks that their snowball did not gather as it went. 



lOO KING JOHN. ACT IV. 



ACT IV. 

Scene I. — Northampton. A Room in the Castle. 
Enter Hubert and two Attendants. 

Hub. Heat me these irons hot ; and look you stand 
Within the arras : ^ when I strike my foot 
Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth, 
And bind the boy which you shall find with me 
Fast to the chair : be heedful : hence, and watch. 

I Attend. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed. 

Hub. Uncleanly scruples ! fear not you : look to't. — 

\Exeunt Attendants. 
Young lad, come forth ; I have to say with you. 

Enter Arthur. 

Arth. Good morrow, Hubert. 

Hub. Good morrow, little Prince. 

Arth. As little prince, having so great a title 
To be more^ prince, as may be. You are sad. 

Hub. Indeed, I have been merrier. 

Arth. Mercy on me ! 

Methinks no body should be sad but I : 
Yet, I remember,' when I was in France, 



1 Arras were the hangings or tapestries with which rooms were lined, 
before the days of plastering. To keep them from being rotted by the 
damp, they were hung on frames, far enough from the walls to admit of a 
person's hiding behind them. 

2 More iox greater, again. See page 51, note 5. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. . lOI 

Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, 

Only for wantonness.^ By my Christendom/ 

So I were out of prison, and kept sheep, 

I should be merry as the day is long ; 

And so I would be here, but that I doubt ^ 

My uncle practises more harm to me : 

He is afraid of me, and I of him : 

Is it my fault that I was Geffrey's son ? 

No, indeed, is't not; and I would to Heaven 

I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert. 

JUi^d. \_Aside.'] If I talk to him, with his innocent prate 
He will awake my mercy, which lies dead : 
Therefore I will be sudden and dispatch. 

Arth. Are you sick, Hubert? you look pale to-day : 
In sooth,^ I would you were a little sick, 
That I might sit all night and watch with you : 
I warrant I love you more than you do me. 

Hud. \_Aside.~\ His words do take possession of my 
bosom. — 
Read here, young Arthur. — \_Showing a paper. 

\_Asider\ How, now, foolish rheum ! '^ 
Turning dispiteous ^ torture out of door ! 
I must be brief, lest resolution drop 
Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears. — 

3 This fashionable affectation is ridiculed by Lyly in his Midas : " Now 
every base companion, being in his muhle-fubles, says he is melancholy^ 
* Christendom for christening or baptism. The usage was common. 

5 Doubt m the sense oi fear or suspect ; a frequent usage. — Practises, in 
the next line, is contrives, plots, or uses arts. Repeatedly so. 

6 In truth or trtily. This use of sooth occurs very often. 
'^ Rheum, again, for tears. See page 75, note 2. 

8 Dispiteous for unpiteous, that is, pitiless. — In the next line, brief is 
quick, prompt, or sudden. Often so. 



102 KING JOHN. 



ACT IV. 



Can you not read it ? is't not fairly writ ? 

Arth. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect : 
Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes ? 

Hub. Young boy, I must. 

Arth. And will you ? 

Hub. And I will. 

Arth. Have you the heart? When your head did but 
ache, 
I knit my handkercher about your brows, — • 

The best I had, a princess wrought it me, — 
And I did never ask it you again ; 
And with my hand at midnight held your head ; 
And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,^ 
Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time, 
Saying, What lack you ? and, Whei-e lies your grief f 
Or, What good love may I perform for yoit ? 
Many a poor man's son would have lain still. 
And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you ; 
But you at your sick service ^^ had a prince. 
Nay, you may think my love was crafty love. 
And call it cunning ; do, an if ^^ you will : 
If Heaven be pleased that you must use me ill. 
Why, then you must. Will you put out mine eyes ? 
These eyes that never did nor never shall 
So much as frown on you ? 

Hub. I've sworn to do it ; 

9 That is, as the minutes watch over, or mark, the progress or passage 
of the hour. A pretty way of expressing a minute and sedulous attention. 
— " Still 2Sidi anon," in the next line, is the same as our " ever and anon." 

10 Sick service is of course merely an instance of what is called transferred 
epithet : service done to the sick. 

11 An if is an old reduplication much used in the Poet's time. So we 
have an, or if, or an if used indifferently. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 103 

And with hot irons must I burn them out. 

Arth. Ah, none but in this iron age would do it ! 
The iron of itself, though heat ^^ red-hot, 
Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears, 
And quench his fiery indignation 
Even in the water of mine innocence ; 
Nay, after that, consume away in rust, 
But for containing fire to harm mine eyes. 
Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer'd iron? 
An if an Angel should have come to me, 
And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes, 
I would not have believed him, — no tongue but Hubert's. 

Hub. Come forth ! - \Siamps. 

Re-enter Attendants, with cord, irons, ^'c. 

Do as I bid you do, 

Arth. O, save me, Hubert, save me ! my eyes are out 
Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men. 

Huh. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here. 

Arth. Alas, what need you be so boisterous-rough? 
I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still. 
For Heaven-sake, Hubert, let me not be bound ! 
Nay, hear me, Hubert ! drive these men away. 
And I will sit as quiet as a lamb ; 
I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word, 
Nor look upon the iron angerly : 
Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you. 
Whatever torment you do put me to. 

Hub. Go, stand within ; let me alone with him. 

I Attend. I am best pleased to be from such a deed. 

\_Exeunt Attendants. 

12 Heat for heated, as, before, waft for wafted. See page 52, note 13. 



I04 KING JOHN. ACT IV. 

Ai'th. Alas, I then have chid away my friend ! 
He hath a stern look, but a gentle heart : 
Let him come back, that his compassion may 
Give life to yours. 

Hub. Come, boy, prepare yourself. 

Arth. Is there no remedy? 

Hub. None, but to lose your eyes. 

Arth. O Heaven, that there were but a mote in yours, 
A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair. 
Any annoyance in that precious sense ! 
Then, feeling what small things are boisterous ^-^ there. 
Your vile intent must needs seem horrible. 

Hub. Is this your promise ? go to, hold your tongue. 

Aj'th. Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues 
Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes : 
Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert ; 
Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue. 
So I may keep mine eyes : O, spare mine eyes. 
Though to no use but still to look on you ! 
Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold. 
And would not harm me. 

Hub. I can heat it, boy. 

Arth. No, in good sooth ; the fire is dead with grief, 
Being create for comfort, to be used 
In undeserved extremes : ^^ see else yourself; 
There is no malice burning in this coal ; 
The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out, 

13 Boisterous was used much more variously than at present ; as a com- 
mon antithesis to gentle, and so for rough, rude, violetit, &c. 

14 Extremities, or extreme severities, that are unmerited. Johnson para- 
phrases the passage as follows : " The fire, being created not to hurt, but to 
comfort, is dead with grief for finding itself used in acts of cruelty, which, 
being innocent, I have not deserved." 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 105 

And strew'd repentant ashes on his head. 

Hub. But with my breath I can revive it, boy. 

Arth. An if you do, you will but make it blush, 
And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert : 
Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes ; 
And, like a dog that is compell'd to fight. 
Snatch at his master that doth tarre ^^ him on. 
All things that you should use to do me wrong 
Deny their office : only you do lack 
That mercy which fierce fire and iron extend, 
Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses. 

Hub. Well, see to live ; I will not touch thine eyes 
For all the treasure that thine uncle owes : 
Yet am I sworn, and I did purpose, boy. 
With this same very iron to burn them out. 

Arth. O, now you look like Hubert ! all this while 
You were disguised. 

Hub. Peace ; no more. Adieu. 

Your uncle must not know but you are dead ; 
I'll fill these dogged spies with false reports : 
And, pretty child, sleep doubtless ^^ and secure 
That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world, 
Will not offend thee. 

Arth. O Heaven ! I thank you, Hubert. 

Hub. Silence ; no more : go closely ^'^ in with me : 
Much danger do I undergo for thee. \_Exeunt, 

15 To tarre is to incite, to instigate, as in setting on dogs. So in Hamlet, 
ii. 2: " The nation holds it no sin to tarre them to the controversy." Also 
in Troilus a7id Cressida, i. 3 : " Pride must tarre the mastiffs on." 

16 Doubtless ioT fearless, as doubt iox fear a little before. 

17 Closely \% secretly; a frequent usage. So in Hamlet, iii. i: " For we 
have closely sent for Hamlet hither." So we have " keep close" and " stand 
close',' for any furtive or hidden act. 



I06 KING JOHN. ACT IV. 



Scene II. — The Same. A Room of State in the Palace. 

Efiter King John, crow7ied ; Pembroke, Salisbury, and other 
Lords. The King takes his state. 

K. John. Here once again we sit, once again crown'd, 
And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes. 

Pe7n. This once again, but that your Highness pleased, 
Was once superfluous : ^ you were crown'd before, 
And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off; 
The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt ; 
Fresh expectation troubled not the land 
With any long'd-for change or better state. 

Sal. Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp, 
To guard ^ a title that was rich before, 
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 
To throw a perfume on the violet. 
To smooth the ice, or add another hue 
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light 
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, 
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 

Pern. But that your royal pleasure must be done. 
This act is as an ancient tale new-told j 
And in the last repeating troublesome. 
Being urged at a time unseasonable. 

Sal. In this, the antique and well-noted face 
Of plain old form is much disfigured ; 
And, like a shifted wind unto a sail. 
It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about ; 

1 " Once superfiuous " means once more than enough. 

2 To guard is to face, or ornament with facings. See The Merchant, 
page III, note 30. 



SCENE II. KING JOHN. 107 

Startles and frights consideration ; 

Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected, 

For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.^ 

Pe7n. When workmen strive to do better than well, 
They do confound their skill in covetousness ; ^ 
And oftentimes excusing of a fault 
Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse ; 
As patches set upon a little breach I 

Discredit more in hiding of the fault p 

Than did the fault before it was so patch'd. 

Sal. To this effect, before you were new-crown'd. 
We breathed our counsel : but it pleased your Highness 
To overbear't ; and we are all well pleased. 
Since all and every part of what we would 
Doth make a stand at what your Highness will. 

K. John. Some reasons of this double coronation 
I have possess'd you with, and think them strong j 
And more, more strong, when lesser is my fear, 
I shall indue you with : meantime but ask 
What you would have reform'd that is not well, 
And well shall you perceive how willingly 
I will both hear and grant you your requests. 

Pem. Then I — as one that am the tongue of these, 
To sound ^ the purposes of all their hearts. 
Both for myself and them, but, chief of all. 
Your safety, for the which myself and they 



3 Properly, " so new-fash ion'd a robe." The Poet has many such in- 
versions for metre's sake. See The Tempest, page 123, note 25. 

4 Covetousness here means over-eager desire of excelling. Bacon, in hke 
sort, distinguishes between the love of excelling and the love of excellence 
and" ascribes the failures of certain men to the former. 

5 To sound, as the word is here used, is to speak or express. 



I08 KING JOHN, ACT IV. 

Bend their best studies — heartily request 

Til' enfranchisement of Arthur ; wliose restraint 

Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent 

To break into this dangerous argument : 

If what in rest you have, in right you hold,^ 

Wliy should your fears — which, as they say, attend 

The steps of wrong — then move you to mew up 

Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days 

With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth 

The rich advantage of good exercise ? 

That the time's enemies may not have this 

To grace occasions,'^ let it be our suit, 

That you have bid us ask, his liberty ; ^ 

Which for our goods we do no further ask 

Than whereupon our weal, on you depending, 

Counts it your weal he have his liberty. 

K. John. Let it be so : I do commit his youth 
To your direction. — 

Enter Hubert ; whom Khig John takes aside. 

Hubert, what news with you ? 
Pent. This is the man should do the bloody deed ; 
He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine : 
The image of a wicked heinous fault 
Lives in his eye ; that close aspect ^ of his 

6 That is, " if you rightly hold that which you are possessed of." 

7 " That they may not have this to urge in behalf of, or for giving plausi- 
bility to, alleged occasions ; " that is, occasions of revolt. 

8 The order, according to the sense, is, " let his liberty be our suit, that 
you have bid us ask." The language would be better with make instead 
of ask. To ask a suit is hardly English. 

9 Close aspect is look of secrecy, of concealment, or of keeping dark. See 
page 105, note 17. 



SCENE II. KING JOHN. 109 

Does show the mood of a much-troubled breast ; 
And I do fearfully believe 'tis done, 
What we so fear'd he had a charge to do. 

Sal. The colour of the King doth come and go 
Between his purpose and his conscience/^ 
Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles sent : ^^ 
His passion is so ripe, it needs must break. 

Fe7n. And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence 
The foul corruption .of a sweet child's death. 

K.John. We cannot hold mortality's strong hand. 
Good lords, although my will to give is living, 
The suit which you demand is gone and dead : 
He tells us Arthur is deceased to-night.i^ 

Sal. Indeed, we fear'd his sickness was past cure. 

Pe?7i. Indeed, we heard how near his death he was 
Before the child himself felt he was sick : 
This must be answer'd either here or hence. 

K.John. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me? 
Think you I bear the shears of destiny? 
Have I commandment on the pulse of life ? 

Sal. It is apparent ^^ foul-play ; and 'tis shame 

10 Between his wicked purpose and his conscience of right. Hubert 
gives the King to understand that his order for Arthur's death has been 
performed. — Perhaps I should note here, that in Shakespeare's time coti- 
science was used as a dissyllable or trisyllable indifferently, as prosody 
might require. Here it is properly a trisyllable. The same was the case 
with patience, and other like v/ords. And we have, in this play, many in- 
stances of words ending in -tion or -sio7i, where that ending is properly dis- 
syllabic ; as in " Startles and frights consideration," in this scene. 

11 Not betwixt two battles, in our sense of the word, but betwixt two 
armies drawn up in battle array. Battle was often used thus. 

12 To-night for last night, or the past night. See The Merchant, page 
117, note 2. 

13 Apparent, here, is evident or manifest. See King Richard III., page 
100, note 15. 



no KING JOHN. ACT IV. 

That greatness should so grossly offer it : 
So thrive it in your game ! and so, farewell. 

Pe7n. Stay yet, Lord Sahsbury ; I'll go with thee, 
And find th' inheritance of this poor child, 
His httle kingdom of a forced grave. 
That blood which owed the breadth of all this isle. 
Three foot ^^ of it doth hold : bad world the while ! 
This must not be thus borne : this will break out, 
To all our sorrows, and ere long, I doubt.^^ \_Exeunt Lords. 

K.John. They burn in indignation. I repent : 
There is no sure foundation set on blood. 
No certain life achieved by others' death. — 

Enter a Messenger. 

A fearful eye^^ thou hast : where is that blood 

That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks ? 

So foul a sky clears not without a storm : 

Pour down thy weather. How goes all in France ? 

Mess. From France to England. ^^ Never such a power 
For any foreign preparation 
Was levied in the body of a land. 
The copy ^^ of your speed is learn'd by them j 
For when you should be told they do prepare, 
The tidings come that they are all arrived. 

1* In words denoting measurement of time, space, and quantity, the 
singular form is often used with the plural sense. So we h.-a.Ne. year iox years, 
mile for miles, pound for pounds, and, as here, foot for feet. See The 
Te7npest, page 51, note 13. 

15 Doubt, again, iox fear or suspect. See page loi, note 5. 

16 " K fearful eye " here means an eyefull of fear ; that \s,, frightened. 

1'^ The messenger plays upon goes ; meaning, " all in France now goes 
to England." 

18 Copy in the sense oi example ov pattern. Often so. 



SCENE II. KING JOHN. Ill 

K. John. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk? 
Where hath it slept ? Where is my mother's ear, 
That such an army could be drawn in France, 
And she not hear of it ? 

Mess. My liege, her ear 

Is stopp'd with dust ; the first of April died 
Your noble mother : and, as I hear, my lord. 
The Lady Constance in a frenzy died 
Three days before ; but this from rumour's tongue 
I idly heard ; if true or false I know not. 

K. John. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion ! 
O, make a league with me, till I have pleased 
My discontented peers ! — What ! mother dead ! 
How wildly, then, walks my estate in France ! — 
Under whose conduct come those powers of France 
That thou for truth givest out are landed here ? 

Mess. Under the Dauphin. 

K. John. Thou hast made me giddy 

With these ill tidings. — 

Enter the Bastard and Peter of Pomfret. 

Now, what says the world 
To your proceedings ? do not seek to stuff 
My head with more ill news, for it is full. 

Bast. But if you be afeard to hear the worst, 
Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head. 

K. John. Bear with me, cousin ; for I was amazed 
Under the tide : but now I breathe again 
Aloft the flood ; and can give audience 
To any tongue, speak it of what it will. 

Bast. How I have sped among the clergymen, 
The sums I have collected shall express. 



112 KING JOHN. ACT IV. 

But as I traveird hither through the land, 
I find the people strangely fantasied ; 
Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams, 
Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear : 
And here's a prophet, that I brought with me 
From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found 
With many hundreds treading on his heels ; 
To whom he sung, in rude harsh- soiinding rhymes, 
That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon. 
Your Highness should deliver up your crown. 

K.John. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so? 

Peter. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so. 

K. John. Hubert, away with him ; imprison him ; 
And on that day at noon, whereon he says 
I shall yield up my crown, let him be hang'd. 
Deliver him to safety ; ^^ and return, 
For I must use thee. — \_Exii Hubert with Peter. 

O my gentle cousin, 
Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arrived ? 

Bast. The French, my lord ; men's mouths are full 
of it: 
Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury 
With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire, 
And others more, going to seek the grave 
Of Arthur, who, they say, is kill'd to-night 
On your suggestion. 

K.John. Gentle kinsman, go, 

And thrust thyself into their companies : 
I have a way to win their loves again ; 
Bring them before me. 

19 Safety for safe-keeping, or custody. 



SCENE II. KING JOHN. 113 

Bast I will seek them out. 

K.Joh7i. Nay, but make haste ; the better foot before. 
O, let me have no subjects enemies, 
When adverse foreigners affright my towns 
With dreadful pomp of stout -^ invasion ! 
Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels. 
And fly like thought from them to me again. 

Bast. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed. 

K.John. Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman. — 

\_Exit Bastard. 
Go after him ; for he perhaps shall need 
Some messenger betwixt me and the peers ; 
And be thou he. 

Mess. With all my heart, my liege. \_Exit. 

K. John. My mother dead ! 

Re-enter Hubert. 

Hub. My lord, they say five Moons were seen to-night ; 
Four fixed ; and the fifth did whirl about 
The other four in wondrous motion. 

K.John. Five Moons ! 

Hub. Old men and beldams in the streets 

Do prophesy upon it dangerously : 
Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths : 
And, when they talk of him, they shake their heads, 
And whisper one another in the ear ; 
And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist j 
Whilst he that hears makes fearful action. 
With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes. 
I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus, 

20 stout, here, is bold, proud. See page 77, note 4. 



1 14 KING JOHN. ACT IV. 

«• 

The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool, 
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news ; 
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand, 
Standing on slippers, — which his nimble haste 
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet, — 
Told of a many thousand warlike French 
That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent : 
Another lean unwash'd artificer 
Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death. 

K.John. Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears? 
Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death ? 
Thy hand hath murder'd him : I had a mighty cause 
To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him. 

Hub. No had,2i my lord ! why, did you not provoke me? 

K. John. It is the curse of kings to be attended 
By slaves that take their humours for a warrant 
To break within the bloody house of life ; 
And, on the winking of authority, 
To understand a law ; to know the meaning 
Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns 
More upon humour than advised respect.22 

Hub. Here is your hand and seal for what I did. 

K. John. O, when the last account 'twixt Heaven and Earth 
Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal 
Witness against us to damnation ! 
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds 
Make ill deeds done ! Hadst thou not then been by, 

21 No had is an ancient form of speech, equivalent to had not. This ap- 
pears from various corresponding phrases in aid writers, such as no does, 
no did, no will, (S:c. 

22 Advised respect is deliberate judgment or consideration. See page 86, 
note 22. 



SCENE II. KING JOHN. 115 

A fellow by the hand of Nature mark'd, 
Quoted,^^ and sign'd, to do a deed of shame, 
This murder had not come mto my mind : 
But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect, 
Finding thee fit for bloody villainy, 
Apt, liable to be employ 'd in danger, 
I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death ; 
And thou, to be endeared to a king, 
Made it no conscience to destroy a prince. 

Hub. My lord, — 

K. John. Hadst thou but shook thy head, or made a pause. 
When I spake darkly what I purposed. 
Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face, 
Or bid me tell my tale in express words, 
Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off. 
And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me : 
But thou didst understand me by my signs. 
And didst in signs again parley with sin ; 
Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent. 
And consequently thy rude hand to act 
The deed, which both our tongues held vile to name.^^ 
Out of my sight, and never see me more ! 
My nobles leave me ; and my state is braved, 

23 To note is among the old meanings of to qiiote. Shakespeare often 
has it so. 

24 There are many touches of nature in this conference of John with 
Hubert. A man engaged in wickedness would keep the profit to himself, 
and transfer the guilt to his accomplice. This timidity of guilt is drawn ab 
ipsls recessibus, from the intimate knowledge of mankind; particularly that 
line in which he says that to have bid him tell his tale in express words would 
have struck him dumb : nothing is more certain than that bad men use all 
the arts of fallacy upon themselves; palliate their actions to their own minds 
by gentle terms, and hide themselves from their own detection in ambigui- 
ties and subterfuges. — Johnson. 



Il6 KING JOHN. ACT IV. 

Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers : 

Nay, in the body of this fleshly land, 

This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath, 

Hostility and civil tumult reign 

Between my conscience and my cousin's death. 

Hub. Arm you against your other enemies, 
I'll make a peace between your soul and you. 
Young Arthur is ahve : this hand of mine 
Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand, 
Not painted with the crimson spots of blood. 
Within this bosom never enter'd yet 
The dreadful motion of a murderous thought ; 
And you have slander'd nature in my form. 
Which, howsoever rude exteriorly, 
Is yet the cover of a fairer mind 
Than to be butcher of an innocent child. 

K. John. Doth Arthur live? 6, haste thee to the peers. 
Throw this report on their incensed rage. 
And make them tame to their obedience ! 
Forgive the comment that my passion made 
Upon thy feature ; for my rage was blind. 
And foul-imaginary eyes of blood 
Presented ^^ thee more hideous than thou art. 
O, answer not ; but to my closet bring 
The angry lords with all expedient haste ! 
I c6njure thee but slowly ; run more fast. \_Exeunt 

25 Presented for represented. Repeatedly so. 



SCENE III. KING JOHN. 117 

Scene III. — The Same. Before the Castle. 

Enter, on the walls, Arthur, disguised as a Ship-boy. 

Arth. The wall is high, and yet will I leap down : — 
Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not ! — 
There's few or none do know me : if they did. 
This ship-boy's semblance hath disguised me quite. 
I am afraid ; and yet I'll venture it. 
If I get down, and do not break my limbs, 
I'll find a thousand shifts to get away : 

As good to die and go, as die and stay. \_Leaps down. 

O me ! my uncle's spirit is in these stones : — 
Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones ! \_Dies. 

Enter Pembroke, Salisbury, and Bigot. 

Sal. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmund's-Bury : 
It is our safety, and we must embrace 
This gentle offer of the perilous time. 

Pent. Who brought that letter from the Cardinal? 

Sal The Count Melun, a noble lord of France ; 
Whose private ^ with me of the Dauphin's love 
Is much more general than these lines import. 

Big. To-morrow morning let us meet him, then. 

Sal. Or rather then set forward ; for 'twill be 
Two long days' journey, lords, or e'er ^ we meet. 

Enter the Bastard. 



1 Private here may mean secret information ov personal conference. But 
I suspect the text is wrong. See Critical Notes. 

2 Or ever was a common phrase for before. See Tempest^ page 49, note 3. 



Il8 KING JOHN. * ACT IV. 

Bast. Once more to-day well-met, distemper'd ^ lords ! 
The King by me requests your presence straight. 

Sal. The King hath dispossess'd himself of us : 
We will not line his sin-bestained cloak 
With our pure honours, nor attend the foot 
That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks. 
Return and tell him so : we know the worst. 

Bast. Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best. 

Sal. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason ^ now. 

Bast. But there is little reason in your grief; 
Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now. 

Pem. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege; 

Bast. 'Tis true, — to hurt his master, no man else. 

Sal. This is the prison. What is he lies here ? 

\_Seeing Arthur. 

Pem. O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty ! 
The earth had not a hole to hide this deed. 

Sal. Murder, as hating what himself hath done, 
Doth lay it -open, to urge on revenge. 

Big. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave. 
Found it too precious-princely for a grave. 

Sal. Sir Richard, what think you ? Have you beheld, 
Or have you read or heard? or could you think? 
Or do you almost think, although you see. 
That you do see ? could thought, without this object, 
Form such another? This is the very top. 
The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest. 
Of murder's arms : this is the bloodiest shame, 

s Distemper' d in the sense of angry or out of temper. So in Hamlet, iii. 
2 : " The King, sir, is, in his retirement, marvellous distemper d." 

4 Reasofi for talk or converse. Often so. See King Richard III., page 
178, note 46. 



SCENE III. KING JOHN. 119 

The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke, 
That ever wall-eyed ^ wrath or staring rage 
Presented to the tears of soft remorse.^ 

Pern. All murders past do stand excused in this : 
And this, so sole and so unmatchable, 
Shall give a holiness, a purity, 
To the yet-unbegotten sins of time ; 
And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest, 
Exampled by this heinous spectacle. 

Bast. It is a damned and a bloody work ; 
The graceless action of a heavy hand, — 
If that it be the work of any hand. 

Sal, If that it be the work of any hand ! 
We had a kind of light what would ensue : 
It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand j 
The practice and the purpose of the King : 
From whose obedience I forbid my soul, 
Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life, 
And breathing to his breathless excellence 
The incense of a vow, a holy vow, 
Never to taste the pleasures of the world. 
Never to be infected with delight. 
Nor conversant with ease and idleness, 
Till I have set a glory to this head. 
By giving it the worship of revenge. 

° Wall-eyed is " having eyes with a white or pale-gray iris, — glaring-eyed, 
fierce-eyed." So says Dyce; and quotes from Cotgrave " A Whall, over- 
white eye. Oeil de chevre." And the author of The Dialect of Craven, 
after quoting Shakespeare's " wall-eyed wrath," says, " It frequently happens 
that, when a person is in an excessive passion, a large portion of the white 
of the eye is visible. This confirms the propriety and force of the above 
expression." 

6 Remorse \spity or compassiotz. Generally so in the Poet's time. 



I20 KING JOHN. ACT iv. 

irfft ) 

\ Our souls religiously confirm thy words. 
Big. ) 

Enter Hubert. 

Hub. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you : 
Arthur doth live ; the King hath sent for you. 

SaL O, he is bold, and blushes not at death : — 
Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone ! 

Hub. I am no villain. 

SaL \_Drawing his sword.~\ Must I rob the law ? 

Bast. Your sword is bright, sir ; put it up again. 

Sal. Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin. 

Hub. Stand back, Lord Salisbury, — stand back, I say; 
By Heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours : 
I would not have you, lord, forget yourself, 
Nor tempt the danger of my true defence ; ^ 
Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget 
Your worth, your greatness, and nobility. 

Big. Out, dunghill ! darest thou brave a nobleman ? 

Hub. Not for my life : but yet I dare defend 
My innocent life against an emperor. 

Sal. Thou art a murderer. 

Hub. Do not prove me so ; ^ 

Yet I am none : whose tongue soe'er speaks false, 
^ Not truly speaks ; who speaks not truly, hes. 

Pe7?t. Cut him to pieces. 

Bast. Keep the peace, I say. 

Sal. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Falconbridge. 

Bast. Thou wert better gall the Devil, Salisbury : 

' " True defence " is honest defence ; that is, defence in a just cause. 
8 Meaning, " Do not prove me a murderer by forcing or provoking me 
to kill you." — Yet, in the next line, has the force of as yet. 



SCENE III. " KING JOHN. 121 

If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot, 

Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame, 

I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime ; 

Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron. 

That you shall think the Devil is come from Hell. 

Big. What wilt thou do, renowned Falconbridge ? 
Second a villain and a murderer ? 

Hub, Lord Bigot, I am none. 

Big. Who kill'd this Prince? 

Hub. 'Tis not an hour since I left him well : 
I honour'd him, I loved him ; and will weep 
My date of life out for his sweet life's loss. 

Sal. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes, 
For villainy is not without such rheum ; 
And he, long traded' in it, makes it seem 
Like rivers of remorse and innocency. 
Away with me, all you whose souls abhor 
Th' uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house ; 
For I am stifled with this smell of sin. 

Big. Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there ! 

Pern. There, tell the King, he may inquire us out. 

\_Exeunt Lords. 

Bast. Here's a good world ! Knew you of this fair work? 
Beyond the infinite and boundless reach 
Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death, 
Art thou damn'd, Hubert. 

Hub. Do but hear me, sir : — 

Bast. Ha ! I'll tell thee what ; 
Thou'rt damn'd as black^ — nay, nothing is so black; 



9 Staunton thinks the Poet may here have had in mind the old religious 
plays of Coventry, wherein the damned souls have their faces blackened. 



122 KING JOHN. ACT IV. 

Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer : 

There is not yet so ugly a fiend of Hell 

As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child. 

Hub. Upon my soul, — 

Bast. If thou didst but consent 

To this most cruel act, do but despair ; 
And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread 
That ever spider twisted from her womb 
Will serve to strangle thee ; a rush will be a beam 
To hang thee on ; or, wouldst thou drown thyself, ^ 
Put but a little water in a spoon. 
And it shall be as all the ocean, 
Enough to stifle such a villain up. 
I do suspect thee very grievously. 

Hub. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought, 
Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath 
Which was embounded in this beauteous clay, 
Let Hell wants pains enough to torture me ! 
I left him well. 

Bast. Go, bear him in thine arms. 

I am amazed, methinks ; and lose my way 
Among the thorns and dangers of this world. 
How easy dost thou take all England up ! * 

From forth this morsel of dead royalty. 
The life, the right, and truth of all this realm 
Is fled to Heaven ; and England now is left 
To tug and scamble,i^ and to part by th' teeth 



Sharp, in his account of these performances, speaking of White and Black 
Souls, says that these characters are sometimes " denominated savyd and 
davipiiyd Sowles, instead of white and black." 

i** To scramble is much the same as to ruffle, to swagger ; to carry one's 
point by turbulence and bravado. See Much Ado, page 109, note 7. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 123 

Th' unowed^i interest of proud-swelling state. 
Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty- 
Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest, 
And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace : 
Now powers from home and discontents at home 
Meet in one line ; and vast^^ confusion waits, 
As doth a raven on a sick-fall'n beast, 
The imminent decay of wasted pomp. 
Now happy he whose cloak and cincture ^^ can 
Hold out this tempest. — Bear away that child. 
And follow me with speed : I'll to the king : 
A thousand businesses are brief in hand. 
And Heaven itself doth frown upon the land. \_Exeunt, 

7^ 



ACT V. 

Scene I. — Northampton. A Room in the Palace. 
Enter King John, Pandulph with the crown, d;;?^ Attendants. 

K. John. Thus have I yielded up into your hand 
The circle of my glory. 

Pand. \_Giving him the crown."] Take't again 
From this my hand, as holding of the Pope 
Your sovereign greatness and authority. 

11 Unowed for unowned. The unowned interest is the interest not now 
legally possessed by any one. 

12 Vast in the sense of the Latin vastus ; that is, empty, or waste. Some- 
times it appears to mean wasting or devastating ; as in King Henry V., ii. 3 : 
" The poor souls for whom this hungry war opens his vasty jaws." 

13 Cincture is belt or girdle. 



124 KING JOHN. ACT V. 

K. John. Now keep your holy word : go meet the 
French ; 
And from his Hohness use all your power 
To stop their marches, 'fore we are inflamed.^ 
Our discontented counties ^ do revolt ; 
Our people quarrel with obedience ; 
Swearing allegiance and the love of soul 
To stranger blood, to foreign royalty. 
This inundation of mistemper'd humour 
Rests by you only to be qualified : 
Then pause not ; for the present time's so sick, 
That present medicine must be minister' d, 
Or overthrow incurable ensues. 

Pand. It was my breath that blew this tempest up, 
Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope : 
But, since you are a gentle convertite,^ 
My tongue shall hush again this storm of war, 
And make fair weather in your blustering land. 
On this Ascension-day, remember well. 
Upon your oath of service to the Pope, 
Go I to make the French lay down their arms. \^Exit. 

K.John. Is this Ascension-day ? Did not the prophet 
Say, that before Ascension-day at noon 
My crown I should give off? Even so I have : 
I did suppose it should be on constraint ; 
But, Heaven be thank 'd, it is but voluntary. 



1 I/i_flafned here means on fire or in confiagration ; as in Chapman's Iliad, 
book viii. : " We should have made retreate by light of the ififiamed fleet." 

2 Counties probably refers not to geographical divisions, but to the peers 
or nobles ; county being a common title of nobility. 

3 Convertite in its old ecclesiastical sense, for one who, having relapsed, 
has been recovered. See As You Like It, page 140, note 31. 



SCENE I. KING JOHN. 125 

Enter the Bastard. 

Bast. All Kent hath yielded ; nothing there holds out 
But Dover Castle : London hath received, 
Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers : 
Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone 
To offer service to your enemy ; 
And wild amazement hurries up and down 
The little number of your doubtful friends. 

K. John. Would not my lords return to me again, 
After they heard young Arthur was alive ? 

Bast. They found him dead, and cast into the streets ; 
An empty casket, where the jewel of life 
By some damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en away. 

K. John. That villain Hubert told me he did live. 

Bast. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew. 
But wherefore do you droop ? why look you sad ? 
Be great in act, as you have been in thought j 
Let not the world see fear and sad distrust 
Govern the motion of a kingly eye : 
Be stirring as the time ; be fire with fire ; • 

Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow 
Of bragging horror : so shall inferior eyes, 
That borrow their behaviours from the great, 
Grow great by your example, and put on 
The dauntless spirit of resolution. 
Away, and glister like the god of war. 
When he intendeth to become the field : 
Show boldness and aspiring confidence. 
What, shall they seek the Hon in his den. 
And fright him there, and make him tremble there ? 
O, let it not be said ! Forage, and run 



126 KING JOHN. ACT V. 

To meet displeasure ^ further from the doors, 
And grapple with him ere he come so nigh. 

K. John. The legate of the Pope hath been with me, 
And I have made a happy peace with him ; 
And he hath promised to dismiss the powers 
Led by the Dauphin. 

Bast. O inglorious league ! 

Shall we, upon the footing of our land, 
Send fair-play offers, and make compromise, 
Insinuation, parley, and base truce, 
To arms invasive ? shall a beardless boy, 
A cocker'd silken wanton,^ brave our fields. 
And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil. 
Mocking the air with colours idly spread. 
And find no check ? Let us, my hege, to arms : 
Perchance the Cardinal cannot make your peace ; 
Or, if he do, let it at least be said 
They saw we had a purpose of defence. 

K. John. Have thou the ordering of this present time. 

Bast. Away, then, with good courage ! yet, I know. 
Our party may well meet a prouder foe. \_Exeunt. 

4 Displeasure, to make it harmonize with the context, must here be taken 
as equivalent to enmity or hostility ; the sense of the passage being, " Rush 
forth to hunt and dare the foe, as a hungry Hon does to seek his prey." See 
Critical Notes. 

5 "A cocker'd silken wanton" is a pampered, finely-tailored milksop. — 
To fiesh, as the word is here used, is to elate, embolden, or rnake eager for 
fighting ; just as we wsQjlushed. The Poet has fieshment in the same sense. 



SCENE II. KING JOHN. 127 



Scene II. — Near St. Edmund^s-Bury. The French Camp. 

Enter, in arms, Louis, Salisbury, Melun, Pembroke, Bigot, 

and Soldiers. 

Lou. My Lord Melun, let this be copied out. 
And keep it safe for our remembrance : 
Return the precedent ^ to these lords again ; 
That, having our fair order written down. 
Both they and we, perusing o'er these notes, 
May know wheref6re we took the sacrament, 
And keep our faiths firm and inviolable. 

Sal. Upon our sides it never shall be broken. 
And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear 
A voluntary zeal and unurged faith 
To your proceedings ; yet, believe me, Prince, 
I am not glad that such a sore of time 
Should seek a plaster by condemn'd revolt. 
And heal th' inveterate canker of one wound 
By making many. O, it grieves my soul. 
That I must draw this metal from my side 
To be a widow-maker ! O, and there 
Where honourable rescue and defence 
Cries out upon the name of Salisbury ! 
But such is the infection of the time. 
That, for the health and physic of our right, 
We cannot deal but with the very hand 
Of stern injustice and confused wrong. — 

1 T\\Q precedettt \s the oi'iginal draft of the treaty. So, in King Richard 
III., iii. 6, the Scrivener employed to copy out the indictment of Hastings, 
says, " Eleven hours I have spent to write it over ; the precedent was full as 
long a-doing." 



128 KING JOHN. ACT V. 

And is't not pity, O my grieved friends, 

Ttiat we, the sons and children of this isle, 

Were born to see so sad an hour as this ; 

Wherein we step after a stranger-march 

Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up 

Her enemies' ranks, (I must withdraw and weep 

Upon the spot of this enforced ^ cause,) 

To grace the gentry of a land remote. 

And follow unacquainted colours here ? 

What, here ? — O nation, that thou couldst remove ! 

That Neptune's arms, who clippeth ^ thee about, 

Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself. 

And grapple thee unto a pagan shore ; 

Where these two Christian armies might combine 

The blood of malice in a vein of league. 

And not to-spend '* it so unneighbourly ! 

Lou. A noble temper dost thou show in this ; 
And great affections wrestling in thy bosom 
Do make an earthquake of nobility. 
O, what a noble combat hast thou fought 
Between compulsion and a brave respect \ ^ 

2 Spot is stain, blot, or disgrace. Salisbury thinks it, as he well may, a 
foul dishonour thus to side with the invader of his country ; and the con- 
science of duty, or the sense of right outraged in the person of Arthur, which 
compels him to do so, naturally wrings him with grief. A hard alternative 
indeed ! — Enforced is enforcing ; another instance of the confusion of active 
and passive forms. See page 75, note 2. 

3 To clip is to encircle or embrace. See Winter s Tale, page 159, note 7. 

4 To is here used merely as an intensive prefix. The usage was common, 
and Shakespeare has it several times. 

^ Here, as usual, respect is consideratioji, motive, or ifidticement. See 
page 86, note 22. — Brave is manly, honourable, and so a fitting epithet of 
the national feeling which has struggled so hard for the mastery in Salis- 
bury's breast. — Compulsion refers to the ''enforcing cause" mentioned in 
note 2. 



SCENE II. KING JOHN. 129 

Let me wipe off this honorable dew 

That silverly doth progress ^ on thy cheeks : 

My heart hath melted at a lady's tears, 

Being an ordinary inundation ; 

But this effusion of such manly drops, 

This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul. 

Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amazed 

Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven 

Figured quite o'er with burning meteors. 

Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury, 

And with a great heart heave away this storm : 

Commend these waters to those baby eyes 

That never saw the giant world enraged ; 

Nor met with fortune other than at feasts. 

Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossipping. 

Come, come ; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep 

Into the purse of rich prosperity 

As Louis himself : — so, nobles, shall you all. 

That knit your sinews to the strength of mine. — 

And even there, methinks, an Angel spake : '^ 

Look, where the holy legate comes apace, 

6 " Shakespeare was guilty, according to cousin Bull, of an unmitigated 
Americanism in writing this line." So says Mr. White. But I suspect he 
is a little off the track here. Progress, I take it, is a substantive, and doth is 
used as a principal verb, equivalent to maketh. So it still remains to be 
shown that yx'^va^ progress as a verb was English in Shakespeare's time. 

■^ This is a strange passage. The Cambridge Editors note upon it as 
follows : " Surely the close proximity of purse, nobles, and angel, shows that 
Shakespeare has here yielded to the fascination of a jeu de mots, which he 
was unable to resist, however unsuitable the occasion might be. The 
Dauphin, we may suppose, speaks aside, with an accent and gesture which 
mark his contempt for the mercenary allies whom he intends to get rid 
of as soon as may be." It may be needful to add that noble and angel were 
names of English coins. 



130 KING JOHN. ACT V. 

To give us warrant from the hand of Heaven, 
And on our actions set tlie name of right 
With holy breath. 

Enter Pandulph, attended. 

Pand. Hail, noble Prince of France ! 

The next is this: King John hath reconciled 
Himself to Rome ; his spirit is come in, 
That so stood out against the holy Church, 
The great metropoHs and see of Rome : 
Therefore thy threatening colours now wind up ; 
And tame the savage spirit of wild war. 
That, like a lion foster' d-up at hand. 
It may lie gently at the foot of peace. 
And be no further harmful than in show. 

Lou. Your Grace shall pardon me, I will not back : 
I am too high-born to be propertied,^ 
To be a secondary at control, 
Or useful serving-man, and instrument. 
To any sovereign State throughout the world. 
Your breath first kindled the dead coals of war 
Between this chastised kingdom and myself. 
And brought in matter that should feed this fire ; 
And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out 
With that same weak wind which enkindled it. 
You taught me how to know the face of right, 
Acquainted me with interest to ^ this land. 
Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart ; 

8 To be used as a chattel or a piece of property. 

9 Such language was not uncommon. So in i Henry IV., iii. 2: "He 
hath more worthy interest to the state than thou." And in Dugdale's War- 
wickshire : " He hath a release from Rose, and all her interest to the manor 
of Pedimore." 



SCENE 11. KING JOHN. 131 

And come ye now to tell me John hath made 

His peace with Rome ? What is that peace to me ? 

I, by the honor of my marriage-bed, 

After young Arthur, claim this land for mine ; 

And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I back 

Because that John hath made his peace with Rome ? 

Am I Rome's slave ? What penny hath Rome borne, 

What men provided, what munition sent. 

To underprop this action? Is't not I 

That undergo this charge ? who else but I, 

And such as to my claim are liable. 

Sweat in this business and maintain this war ? 

Have I not heard these islanders shout out, 

Vive le roi ! as I have bank'd their towns P^^ 

Have I not here the best cards for the game. 

To win this easy match play'd for a crown? 

And shall I now give o'er the yielded set? 

No, on my soul, it never shall be said. 

Pand. You look but on the outside of this work, 

Lou. Outside or inside, I will not return 
Till my attempt so much be glorified 
As to my ample hope was promised 
Before I drew this gallant head of war, 
And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world. 
To outlook 11 conquest, and to win renown 
Even in the jaws of danger and of death. \Tricmpet sounds. 

10 This is commonly explained " sailed along beside their towns upon the 
rivers' banks " ; as we speak of coasting or flanking. But the cases seem 
by no means parallel ; yet I am not sufficiently booked in card-table lan- 
guage to judge whether Staunton's explanation will hold : " From the con- 
text it seems more probably an allusion to card-playing; and by bank'd 
their towns is meant, won their towns, put them in bank or rest" 

11 To outlook is the same, here, as to outface, or to face down. 



132 KING JOHN. ACT V. 

What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us ? 
Enter the Bastard, attended. 

Bast. According to the fair-play of the world, 
Let me have audience ; I am sent to speak : — 
My holy lord of Milan, from the King 
I come, to learn how you have dealt for him ; 
And, as you answer, I do know the scope 
And warrant limited unto my tongue. 

Pand. The Dauphin is too wilful- opposite, 
And will not temporize ^^ with my entreaties : 
He flatly says he'll not lay down his arms. 

Bast. By all the blood that ever fury breathed. 
The youth says well. — Now hear our English King > 
For thus his royalty doth speak in me. 
He is prepared ; and reason too he should : ^^ 
This apish and unmannerly approach, 
This harness'd masque and unadvised ^^ revel. 
This unhair'd^^ sauciness and boyish troop. 
The King doth smile at ; and is well prepared 
To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms, 
From out the circle of his territories. 
That hand which had the strength, even at your door. 
To cudgel you, and make you take the hatch ; ^^ 
To dive, hke buckets, in concealed wells ; 

12 To temporize is to comply with the exigencies or the interests of the 
time ; hence to yield, to come to terms, to succumb. 

13 " And there is reason too why he should be prepared'' 

14 Harness'd is armed, or armoured, or both. — Ufiadvised, again, for rash, 
inconsiderate, or thoughtless. 

15 Unhaird is beardless, boy-faced. Spoken in contempt, of course. 

16 To take the hatch is to leap the hatch. So \i^e speak of taking the 
fence. 



SCENE II. KING JOHN. 133 

To crouch in litter of your stable planks ; 

To lie, like pawns, lock'd up in chests and trunks ; 

To hug with swine ; to seek sweet safety out 

In vaults and prisons ; and to thrill and shake 

Even at the crowing of your nation's cock,i'^ 

Thinking his voice an armed Englishman ; — 

Shall that victorious hand be feebled here, 

That in your chambers gave you chastisement ? 

No : know the gallant monarch is in arms ; 

And, like an eagle o'er his eyrie, ^^ towers. 

To souse annoyance that comes near his nest. — 

And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts. 

You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb 

Of your dear mother England, blush for shame : 

For your own ladies and pale-visaged maids. 

Like Amazons, come tripping after drums ; 

Their thimbles into armed gauntlets changed. 

Their neelds to lances, and their gentle hearts 

To fierce and bloody inclination. 

Lou. There end thy brave,^^ and turn thy face in peace ; 
We grant thou canst outscold us : fare thee well \ 
We hold our time too precious to be spent 
With such a brabbler. 

Pand. Give me leave to speak. 

17 Probably an equivoque was intended here, gallus being the name both 
of a cock and of a Frenchman. 

18 Eyrie here is nest. Properly it means a young brood in the nest. — 
To tower was a term in falconry for to soar. In the case supposed, an 
eagle mounts in a spiral course ; and soiise was used of the swift and deadly 
plunge which he makes upon the object of his aim, after he has thus soared 
high above it. Stoop was also used of the same act. 

19 Brave is boast, vaunt, or defiance. So in Troilus and Cresslda, iv. 4: 
" This brave shall oft make thee to hide thy head." 



134 KING JOHN. ACT V. 

Bast. No, I will speak. 

Lou. We will attend to neither. — 

Strike up the drums ; and let the tongue of war 
Plead for our interest and our being here. 

Bast. Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out ; 
And so shall you, being beaten : do but start 
An echo with the clamour of thy drum, 
And even at hand a drum is ready braced 
That shall reverberate all as loud as thine ; 
Sound but another, and another shall, 
As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear. 
And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder : for at hand — 
Not trusting to this halting legate here. 
Whom he hath used rather for sport than need — 
Is warlike John ; and in his forehead sits 
A bare-ribb'd death, whose office is this day 
To feast upon whole thousands of the French. 

LoiL. Strike up our drums, to find this danger out. 

Bast. And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt. 

\_Exeunt. 



Scene III. — The Same. A Field of Battle. 

Alarums. Enter King John and Hubert. 

K. John. How goes the day with us ? O, tell me, Hubert ! 
Hub. Badly, I fear. How fares your Majesty? 
K. John. This fever, that hath troubled me so long, 
Lies heavy on me : O, my heart is sick ! 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Falconbridge, 



SCENE IV. KING JOHN. 135 

Desires your Majesty to leave the field, 

And send him word by me which way you go. 

K. John. Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there. 

Mess. Be of good comfort ; for the great supply, ^ 
That was expected by the Dauphin here. 
Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin Sands. 
This news was brought to Richard but even now : 
The French fight coldly, and retire^ themselves. 

K. John. Ah me, this tyrant fever burns me up. 
And will not let me welcome this good news ! — 
Set on toward Swinstead : to my htter straight ; 
Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint. \_Exeunt. 



Scene IV. — The Same. Another Part of the Field. 
Enter Salisbury, Pembroke, and Bigot. 

Sal. I did not think the King so stored with friends. 

Pem. Up once again ; put spirit in the French : 
If they miscarry, we miscarry too. 

Sal. That misbegotten devil, Falconbridge, . 
In spite of spite, alone upholds the day. 

Pem. They say King John sore-sick hath left the field. 

Enter Melun wounded, and led by Soldiers. 

Mel. Lead me to the revolts of England here. 
Sal. When we were happy we had other names. 
Pem. It is the Count Melun. 
Sal. Wounded to death. 

1 Supply here means reinforcement, supply of troops. Hence, as a col- 
lective noun, it admits both a singular and a plural verb, was expected and 
Are wreck'd. 

2 Retire was often thus used transitively, in the sense of withdraw. 



136 KING JOHN. ACT V. 

Mel. Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold ; 
Unthread the eye of rude rebellion, ^ 
And welcome home again discarded faith. 
Seek out King John, and fall before his feet ; 
For, if that France be lord of this loud ^ day, 
He means to recompense the pains you take 
By cutting off your heads : thus hath he sworn, 
And I with him, and many more with me, 
Upon the altar at Saint Edmund's-Bury ; 
Even on that altar where we swore to you 
Dear amity and everlasting love. 

Sal. May this be possible ? may this be true ? 

Mel. Have I not hideous death within my view, 
Retaining but a quantity of life, 
Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax 
Resolveth^ from his figure 'gainst the fire? 
What in the world should make me now deceive, 
Since I must lose the use of all deceit? 
Why should I, then, be false, since it is true 
That I must die here, and live hence by truth ? 
I say again, if Louis do win the day. 
He is forsworn, if e'er those eyes of yours 
Behold another day break in the East : 



3 Here, if the text be right, the unthreading of a needle is used as a 
metaphor for simply undoing what has been done. See Critical Notes. — 
" Bought and sold " is an old proverbial phrase, vaQ2s{v!\^ played false with, 
or betraye^. 

4 Loud appears to have been sometimes used in the sense of stormy or 
boisterous. So in Hamlet, iv. 4 : " My arrows, too slightly timber'd for so 
loud a wind," &c. 

5 Resolveth for melteth ; as in Hamlet, i. 2 : " O, that this too-too solid 
flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew ! " See, also, page 65, 
note 43. 



SCENE IV. KING JOHN. 137 

But even this night, — whose black contagious breath 
Already smokes about the burning crest 
Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied Sun, — 
Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire, 
Paying the fine of rated ^ treachery. 
Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives, 
If Louis by your assistance win the day. 
Commend me to one Hubert, with your King : 
The love of him — and this respect"^ besides, 
For that my grandsire w^as an Englishman — 
Awakes my conscience to confess all this. 
In lieu whereof,^ I pray you, bear me hence 
From forth the noise and rumour ^ of the field ; 
Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts 
In peace, and part this body and my soul 
With contemplation and devout desires. 

Sal. We do believe thee : — and beshrew my soul 
But I do love the favour and the form 
Of this most fair occasion, by the which 
We will untread the steps of damned flight j 
And, like a bated and retired flood, 
Leaving our rankness ^^ and irregular course, 



6 Rated perhaps in the sense of the Latin ratus ; treason ratified by overt 
act. Johnson, however, explains it, " The Dauphin has rated your treach- 
ery, and set upon it a fine which your Uves must pay." — In the next Hne, 

fine seems to mean end, hke the "Lsitm finis. 

7 A clear instance of respect for consideration. See page 128, note 5. 

8 With Shakespeare, in lieu of is always equivalent to m return for, or 
in consideration of See The Tempest, page 55, note 6. 

9 Rumour here is loud murmur, or roar. So in Fairfax's Tasso, vii. 106 : 
" Of breaking spears, of ringing helm and shield, a dreadful rumour roar'd 
on every side." 

1" Rankness, or rank, applied to a river, means overfiowing or exuberant. 



138 KING JOHN. ACT V. 

Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd,!^ 

And calmly run on in obedience, 

Even to our ocean, to our great King John. — 

My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence ; 

For I do see the cruel pangs of death 

Right in thine eye. — Away, my friends ! New flight ; 

And happy newness, that intends old right. 

\_Exeunt, leading off Melun. 



Scene V. — The Same. The French Camp. 

Enter Louis and his Train. 

Lou. The Sun of heaven methought was loth to set, 
But stay'd, and made the western welkin blush, 
When th' English measured backward their own ground 
In faint retire. O, bravely came we off, 
When with a volley of our needless shot. 
After such bloody toil, we bid good night ; 
And wound our tattering ^ colours clearly up, 
Last in the field, and almost lords of it ! 

Enter a Messenger. 

Mess. Where is my Prince, the Dauphin? 

Lou. Here : what news ? 

Mess. The Count Melun is slain ; the English lords. 
By his persuasion, are again fall'n off; 
And your supply, which you have wish'd so long. 
Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands. 

11 O'erlook'd for overflown or overpassed. 

1 Tattering for tattered; the active form with the passive sense, as we 
have before had this order reversed. See page 91, note 5. 



SCENE VI. KING JOHN. 139 

Loti. Ah, foul-shrewd ^ news ! beshrew thy very heart ! 
I did not think to be so sad to-night 
As this hath made me. — Who was he that said 
King John did fly an hour or two before 
The stumbhng night did part our weary powers ? 

Mess. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord. 

Lou. Well ; keep good quarter and good care to-night : 
The day shall not be up so soon as I, 
To try the fair adventure of to-morrow. \_Exeunt. 



Scene VI. — An open Place near Swinsiead Abbey. 
Enter, severally, the Bastard and Hubert. 

Hub. W^ho's there? speak, ho ! speak quickly, or I shoot. 

Bast. A friend. What art thou? 

Hub. Of the part ^ of England. 

Bast. Whither dost thou go ? 

Hub. What's that to thee? 

Bast. Why may not I demand 

Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine ? 
Hubert, I think? 

Hub. Thou hast a perfect thought : 

I will, upon all hazards, well believe 
Thou art my friend, that know'st my tongue so well. 
Who art thou ? 

Bast. ■ Who thou wilt : an if thou please, 

Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think 
I come one way ofthe Plantagenets. 

2 Shrewd in its old sense of sharp, biting, or hitter. Commonly so in 
Shakespeare. See As You Like It, page 140, note 28. 

3 Part for party ; as we have before had party for part. See page 79, 
note 8. 



140 KING JOHN. ACT V. 

Hit-b. Unkind remembrance ! thou and eyeless ^ night 
Have done me shame : — brave soldier, pardon me, 
That any accent breaking from thy tongue 
Should 'scape the true acquaintance of mine ear. 

Bast, Come, come ; sans compliment, what news abroad ? 

Hub. Why, here walk I, in the black brow of night, 
To find you out. 

Bast. Brief, then ; and what's the news ? 

Hub. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night. 
Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible. 

Bast. Show me the very wound of this ill news : 
I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it. 

Hub. The King, I fear, is poison'd by a monk : 
I left him almost speechless ; and broke out 
T' acquaint you with this evil, that you might 
The better arm you to the sudden time. 
Than if you had at leisure known of this.^ 

Bast. How did he take it? who did taste to him? 

Hub. A monk, I tell you ; a resolved ^ villain. 
Whose bowels suddenly burst out : the King 
Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover. 

Bast. Who didst thou leave to tend his Majesty? 

Hub. Why, know you not the lords are all come back, 
And brought Prince Henry in their company? 
At whose request the King hath pardon'd them, 
And they are all about his Majesty. 

4 Eyeless for blind, that is, dark. So in Markham's English Arcadia, 
1607 : " O eyeless night, the portraiture of death." And Shakespeare, in 
Lucrece, has " sightless night." — Remembrance here is memory, or the faculty 
of remembering. 

5 " Than if this knowledge had been withheld from you till the present 
hurry were over, or till you were more at leisure." 

6 Resolved for determined or resolute. 



SCENE VII. KING JOHN. 141 

Bast Withhold thine indignation, mighty Heaven, 
And tempt us not to bear above our power ! — 
I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night. 
Passing these flats, are taken by the tide, — 
These Lincoln washes have devoured them j 
Myself, well-mounted, hardly have escaped. 
Away, before ! conduct me to the King ; 
I doubt ''' he will be dead or e'er I come. \_Exeunt, 



Scene VII. — The Orchard of Swinstead Abbey. 

Enter Prince Henry, Salisbury, and Bigot. 

P. Hen. It is too late : the life of all his blood 
Is touch'd corruptibly ; and his poor brain — 
Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house — 
Doth, by the idle comments that it makes. 
Foretell the ending of mortality. 

Enter Pembroke. 

Pem. His Highness yet doth speak ; and holds belief 
That, being brought into the open air. 
It would allay the burning quality 
Of that fell poison which assaileth him. 

P. Hen. Let him be brought into the orchard here. — 
Doth he still rage ? {^Exit Bigot. 

Pem. He is more patient 

Than when you left him ; even now he sung. 

P. He7i. O vanity of sickness ! fierce extremes 
In their continuance will not feel themselves. ^ 

7 Doubt, again, iox fear. See page loi, note 5. 

1 That is, will lose all sense of themselves, or become unconscious. 



142 KING JOHN. ACT V. 

Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts, 

Leaves them insensible ; and his siege is now 

Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds 

With many legions of strange fantasies, 

Which, in their throng and press to that last hold, 

Confound themselves. .'Tis strange that death should sing. 

I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, 

Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death, 

And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings 

His soul and body to their lasting rest. 

Sal. Be of good comfort, Prince ; for you are born 
To set a form upon that indigest 
Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.^ 

Re-enter Bigot, with Attendants carrying King John i7i a 

chair. 

K. John. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room ; 
It would not out at windows nor at doors. 
There is so hot a summer in my bosom, 
That all my bowels crumble up to dust : 
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen 
Upon a parchment ; and against this fire 
Do I shrink up. 

P. Hen. How fares your Majesty? 

K. John. Poison'd, — ill fare ; — dead, forsook, cast off : 
And none of you will bid the Winter come, 
To thrust his icy fingers in my maw ; 
Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course 
Through my burn'd bosom ; nor entreat the North 
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips, 

2 So in Ovid's description of Chaos : " Quern dixere Chaos, rudis indi- 
gestaque moles." 



SCENE VII. 



KING JOHN. 143 



And comfort me with cold : I do not ask you much, 
I beg cold comfort ; and you are so strait,^ 
And so ingrateful, you deny me that. 

P. Hen. O, that there were some virtue in my tears, 
That might relieve you ! 

K. John. The salt in them is hot. 

Within me is a hell ; and there the poison 
Is, as a fiend, confined to tyrannize 
On unreprievable condemned blood. 

Enter the Bastard. 

Bast. O, I am scalded with my violent motion, 
And spleen^ of speed to see your Majesty ! 

K. John. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye : 
The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd ; 
And all the shrouds, wherewith my hfe should sail, 
Are turned to one thread, one little hair : 
My heart hath one poor string to stay it by. 
Which holds but till thy news be uttered ; 
And then all this thou see'st is but a clod. 
And model ^ of confounded royalty. 

Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward. 
Where Heaven He knows how we shall answer him j 
For in a night the best part of my power, 
As I upon advantage did remove,^ 
Were in the washes all unwarily 
Devoured by the unexpected flood. \_King John dies. 

3 Strait for stingy, niggardly, or small-souled. 

4 Splee7t was used thus of any suddett or violent motion. So in ii. I of this 
play: "With swifter spleen than powder can enforce." 

5 Model here is image or representation. Repeatedly so. 

6 To "remove upon advantage" is to move for the purpose or in the 
hope of gaining an advantage. 



144 KING JOHN. 



ACT V. 



Sal. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear. — 
My liege ! my lord ! — but now a king, now thus. 

F. Heji. Even so must I run on, and even so stop. 
What surety of the world, what hope, what stay, 
When this was now a king, and now is clay ? 

Bast. Art thou gone so ? I do but stay behind 
To do the office for thee of revenge, 
And then my soul shall wait on thee to Heaven, 
As it on Earth hath been the servant still. — 
Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres. 
Where be your powers ? show now your mended faiths ; 
And instantly return with me again, 
To push destruction and perpetual shame 
Out of the weak door of our fainting land. 
Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought ; 
The Dauphin rages at our very heels. 

Sal. It seems you know not, then, so much as we : 
The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest. 
Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin, 
And brings from him such offers of our peace 
As we with honour and respect may take, 
With purpose presently to leave this war. 

Bast. He will the rather do it when he sees 
Ourselves well sinewed to our defence. 

Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already ; 
For many carriages he hath dispatch'd 
To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel 
To the disposing of the Cardinal : 
With whom yourself, myself, and other lords, 
If you think meet, this afternoon will post 
To c6nsummate this business happily. 

Bast. Let it be so : — and you, my noble Prince, 



SCENE VII. KING JOHN. 145 

With other princes that may best be spared, 
Shall wait upon your father's funeral. 

P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be interr'd ; 
For so he will'd it. 

Bast. Thither shall it, then : 

And happily may your sweet self put on 
The Hneal state and glory of the land ! 
To whom, with all submission, on my knee, 
I do bequeath my faithful services 
And true subjection everlastingly. 

Sal. And the like tender of our love we make. 
To rest without a spot for evermore. 

P. Hen. I have a kind soul that would give you thanks, 
And knows not how to do it but with tears. 

Bast. O, let us pay the time but needful woe. 
Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.'^ — 
This England never did, nor never shall, 
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, 
But when it first did help to wound itself. 
Now these her princes are come home again. 
Come the three corners of the world in arms. 
And we shall shock them : nought shall make us rue, 
If England to itself do rest but true. \_Exeunt. 

7 That is, since the time has prefaced this event with afflictions enough. 
The speaker thinks they have already suffered so much, that now they ought 
to give way to sorrow as little as may be. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 



Act I., Scene i. 

Page 41. Why, %vhat a madcap hath Heaven sent us here! — So 
Heath and Walker. The original has lent instead of sent. 

P. 41. With that half- face would he have all my land. — The origi- 
nal has half that face. Corrected by Theobald. 



P. 43. Kneel thou dozvn Philip, but arise m,ore great, — 

Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet. — Instead of " arise n 
great," the old text has " rise more great." Corrected by Steevens 



P. 45. For new-made honour doth forget m.en's na7?ies ; 

' Tis too respective and too sociable 

For your conversion. — I suspect we ought to read, with Pope, 
" too respective and unsociable For your conversing^ This makes 
' Tis refer to ho7iour, as we should naturally understand it. See, how- 
ever, foot-note 20. 

P. 46. For he is but a bastard to the time. 

That doth not smack of observation. — The original has S77ioake 
for smack. Hardly worth noting. 

Act II., Scene i. 

P. 49. K. Phi. Before Angiers well met, brave Austria I — In the 
old copies, this and also King Philip's next speech are assigned to 
Louis. The correction is Theobald's. Mr. W. W. Williams, also, in 
The Parthenon, August 16, 1862, pointed out the error. As he re- 



148 KING JOHN. 

marks, the mere fact of the speaker's saying that Austria " is come 
hither at our importance " is enough to show that the speech should 
not be assigned to Louis, who is addressed afterwards as a " boy." 

P. 52. With them, a bastard of the king deceased. — So the second 
folio. The first has Kings instead of king. 

P. 54. That Geffrey was thy elder brother born. 

And this his son ; England was Geffrey'' s right ; 
And his is Geffrey's. — So Mason. The original reads " And 
this is Geffreyes," this having got repeated from the line above. I sus- 
pect the correction ought to be carried still further, and Arthur'' s sub- 
stituted for Geffreys : " England was Geffrey's right, and his [right] is 
Arthur's." See, however, foot-note 18. 

P. 54. From %vhom hast thou this great commission, France, 

To draw my answer to thy articles ? — So Hanmer. Instead 
of to, the original has from, which probably crept in from the preced- 
ing line. 

P. 55. It lies as sightly on the back of him. 

As great Alcides' does upon an ass. — Instead of does, the old 
text has shooes, out of which it is hardly possible to make any sense. 
Theobald substituted shows, and has been followed by some editors. 
The reading in the text was lately proposed by Mr. H. H. Vaughan. 
It removes all difficulty, and infers an easy misprint. Mr. Fleay re- 
tains shoes, and substitutes ape for ass ; which may be right. 

P. 56. King Philip, determine what zve shall do straight. 

K. Phi. Women and fools, break off your conference. — In the 
first of these lines, the original has " King Lewis,'" and the speech be- 
ginning mth the second line is there assigned to Louis. The correc- 
tion is Theobald's. 

P. 56. England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine. — Both 
here and in one or two other places, the old copy misprints Anglers 
for Anjou. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 149 

P. ^7. Thou and thine usurp 

The dominations, royalties, and rights 

Of this oppressed boy, thy eldest son''s son, 

Jnfortunate in nothing but in thee. — So Ritson and Collier's 
second folio. The original gives the third line thus : " Of this op- 
pressed boy ; this is thy eldest sonnes sonne " ; where both sense and 
metre plead against this is as an interpolation. 

P. 57. And with her plagued ; her sin his injury ; 

Her injury the beadle to her sin. — In the original this stands 

as follows : 

And with her plagtie her sinne : his injury 
Her injury the Beadle to her sinne. 

The passage has proved a very troublesome one to dress into order and 
sense, and is printed variously in modern editions. It is somewhat 
perplexed and obscure at the best. The change of plagtie to plagued 
in the first line is by Roderick, and removes, I think, a good part of 
the difficulty. See foot-notes 27 and 28. 

P. 59. All preparation for a bloody siege 

And merciless proceeding by these French 

Confront your citfs eyes. — The original reads " Comfort yours 
citties eies." Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 60. We will bear home that lusty blood again 

Which here we came to spotit against your town. 
And leave your children, wives, and you in peace. 
But, if you fondly pass our proffer'' d ^0.2.^^, 
'' Tis not the rondure of your old- faced walls, &c. — Instead of 
" proffer'd/^'ar^," the original has " proffer' d ^^'r " / which seems to 
me a plain instance of sophistication, in order to avoid a repetition of 
peace. But I should rather say that the word ought to be repeated 
here, for peace is precisely what the speaker has just proffered. Walker 
notes upon the passage thus : " The bad English, the cacophony, and 
the two-syllable ending, so uncommon in this play, prove that offer is 
a corruption originating in proffer'' d. Read, I think, love." — Instead 
of rondure, in the last line, the old text has rounder, which however is 
but another spelling of the same word. 



150 KING JOHN. 

P. 63. I Cit. Heralds, from off our towers we might behold, &c. — 
In the original, this and the following speeches by the same person 
have the prefix " Hudert." The error — for such it clearly is — prob- 
ably grew from the two parts of the first Citizen and of Hubert being 
assigned to the same actor. 

P. 63. Say, shall the current of our right run on ? — So the second 
folio. Instead of ru7t, the first has rome ; doubtless a misprint for 
runne, the word being commonly so spelt. 

P. 63. Unless thou let his silver waters keep 

A peaceful progress to the ocean. — So Collier's second folio. 
The original has zvater, instead of waters. 

P. 64. Yoti e^ual--potent, fiery-kindled spirits. — So Walker. The 
old text reads " You equall Potents." 

P. 64. A greater Power than ye denies all this. — Instead of ye, the 
original has We. The change was made by Theobald at Warburton's 
suggestion, and was adopted by Hanmer and Capell. The original 
also prefixes " Fra.^^ to the speech. 

P. 65. King'd of our fears, until our fears, resolved. 

Be by .some certain king purged and deposed. — Such is Tyr- 
whitt's reading. The old text reads ^^ Kings of omx feare^\- which, if 
it gives any sense at all, gives a wrong one. The speaker clearly 
means, that they are ruled by their fears, or their fears are their king, 
and must continue to be so, until that king is deposed. 

P. 66. Our thunders y^'c^OT the south 

Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town. — So Capell. The 
old text has Thunder for thunders. The pronoun their points out the 
correction. 

P. 67. That datighter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch, 

Is niece to England. — Instead of niece, the original has neere, 
no doubt a misprint for neece, as the word was commonly'spelt. The 
correction is from Collier's second folio, and is fully justified in that the 
Lady Blanch is repeatedly spoken of as John's niece. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I5I 

P. 67. Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth, 

Is the young Dauphin every way complete : 

If not complete, then say he is not she ; 

And she, again, wants nothing, to name want. 

If want it be, but that she is not he. — The original has, in the 
third of these lines, " If not compleat <y^" and, in the last, " If want it 
be not.^^ The former can hardly be made to yield any sense at all ; 
and Hanmer changed of to oh. The context naturally suggests the 
reading here given : but possibly we ought to read " If not complete 
he, say he is not she." The other correction was proposed, independ- 
ently, by Lettsom and Mr. Swynfen Jervis. The confounding of Imt 
and not is among the commonest of errors in the originals of Shake- 
speare. See foot-note 49. 

P. 67. He is the half part of a blessed man. 

Left to be finished by such a she. — The old text reads " such as 
shee." Not worth noting, perhaps. 

P. 68. Here's a ^^vf. 

That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death 

Out of his rags. — Here, instead oiflaw, the original has stay, 
which Collier's second folio changes to say. The former seems palpa- 
bly wrong, and I cannot pronounce say much better. Johnson pro- 
posed flaw, and Walker says it " is indisputably right." See foot- 
note 51. 

P. 71. For I a?jt well asstired 

That I did so ivhen I was first affied. — Instead of ajfied, the 
old text repeats <a:jj2/rV/ whereupon Walker notes as follows: "It is 
impossible that this repetition of the same word in a different sense — 
there being no quibble intended, or any thing else to justify it — can 
have proceeded from Shakespeare. Read 'when I was first affied,^ 
that is, betrothed.^'' See, also, foot-note 56. 

P. 72. Brother of England, how may we content 

The widow'd lady ? — So Collier's second folio. The original 
has " The widdow Lady." ' 



152 KING JOHN. 

P. 73. Hath drawn him from his own determined aim. — So Mason 
and Collier's second folio. The old text has ayd. 



Act III,, Scene I. 

P, 77- I 'ivill instruct my sorrows to be proud ; 

For grief is proud, and fnakes his owner stout. — Instead of 
stout, the original has stoope,^\i\Q}a. just contradicts the preceding clause. 
Corrected by Hanmer. 

P. 77' Here I and s.orxo'w sit ; 

Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it. — Here, as in a 
former line of the same speech, the old text has sorrowes. There, 
however, the plural is in keeping ; which is far from being the case 
here. Corrected by Pope. 

P. 79. What a fool wert thou, 

A rafnping fool, to brag, and stamp, and swear. 
Upon my party ! — The old text reads " What a fool art thou." 
The context fairly requires the change, which was proposed by 
Lettsom. 

P. 80. What earthly name to interrogatories 

Can task the free breath of a sacred king? — Instead of earthly 
and task, the old text has earthie and last, — palpable misprints. 

P. 82. Louis, stand fast ! the Devil tempts thee here 

In likeness of a new-w^triitimid bride. — The original reads- 
" a new z^/ztrimmed Bride." The correction is Dyce's, who aptly 
quotes, in support of it, from Ro7neo and yuliet, iv. 4 : "Go waken 
Juliet ; go and trim her upP Staunton adopts " the happy and un- 
forced emendation of Mr. Dyce." In his Addenda and Corrigenda, 
however, he makes the following note in support of the old reading. : 
" In old times it was a custom for the bride at her wedding to wear 
her hair unbraided, and hanging loose over her shoulders. May 
not Constance, by ' a new untrimmed bride,' refer to this custom ? 
Peacham, in describing the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the 



CRITICAL NOTES. 153 

Palsgrave, says that ' the bride came into the chapell with a coronet of 
pearle on her head, and her haire dischevelled and hanging down over 
her shoulders,' Compare, too, Tailored and Gismunda, v. I : 

' So let thy tresses flaring in the wind 
Untrinimed hang about thy bared neck.' " 

P. 84. Out of your grace, devise, ordain, impose 
Some gentle order ; then shall we be blest 

To do your pleasure, and continue friends. — In the original, 
the second line reads " Some gentle order, a;z^thenwe shall be blest." 
Here and hurts the metre without helping the sense ; and so, as Lett- 
som remarks, " seems to have intruded from the line next below." 

P. 84. France, thou niayst hold a serpent by the tongue, 

A chafed lion by the mortal patv, &c. — So Theobald. The 
original reads " A cased Lion," which is absurd. Collier's second folio 
has " A cag^d lion," which is rather worse than absurd, as the paw of a 
caged lion may be quite harmless. In support of chafkd, Dyce quotes 
from King Henry VIII., iii. 2 : "So looks the chafM lion upon the 
daring huntsman that hath gall'd him." Also from Fletcher's Loyal 
Subject, V. 3 : " He frets like a chafed lion." 

P. 84. For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss 

Is most amiss when it is truly done ; 

And being not done, zuhere doing tends to ill. 

The truth is then most done, not doing it. — In the second of 
these lines, the original reads " Is not amiss " ; which, it seems to me, 
cannot be reconciled to the context, or strained to sense, without a 
course of argument as over-subtile and intricate as Cardinal Pandulph 
is here using. Warburton reads " Is yet amiss," and Collier's second 
folio, "Is but amiss"; the latter of which also occurred to Lettsom. 
The reading in the text is Hanmer's, and is preferable, I think, to either 
of the others, inasmuch as it just makes a balance between the two 
branches of the sentence. See foot-note 16. 

P. 85. It is religion that doth make vows kept : 
But thou hast sworn against religion ; 
By which thou swear'' st against the thing thou swear'' st. 



154 KING JOHN. 

And makest an oath — the surety for thy truth — 

Against an oath, — the test thou art unsure. 

Who swears, swears only not to be forsworn ; 

Else what a mockery should it be to swear I 

But thou dost swear only to be forsworn. — A transcriber or 
compositor or proof-reader might well get lost in such a maze of casu- 
istry as Pandulph weaves in this speech : accordingly, the original here 
presents an inextricable imbroglio. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth 
of the above lines there stand as follows : 

By what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st, 
And mak'st an oath the suretie for thy truth. 
Against an oath the truth, thou art unsure 
To sweare, sweares onely not to be forsworne." 

In the first of these Hnes, Capell reads " By which,'' as Johnson sug- 
gested ; and Hanmer reads " By that,'' as Staunton also proposes to 
read. In either of these readings the pronoun must be understood as 
referring, not to religion, but to the act expressed in the preceding line. 
Again, in the last of the lines, Who swears is Capell' s reading, which 
Staunton also proposes. In the third line, again, Staunton proposes to 
^.whsWtVitt proof iox truth. This would be a rather bold change ; and 
I prefer test, as a word more likely to be misprinted truth. I see no 
possibility of making any sense out of the passage without some such 
change ; and test is repeatedly used by Shakespeare as an equivalent 
for proof. Perhaps we ought also to read untrue instead of ujisure ; 
but unsure may well be taken in much the same sense as untrue, — 
not to be relied on, or untrustworthy. Some of the strainings and 
writhings of exegetical ingenuity that have been resorted to in support 
of the old text are ludicrous enough. See foot-note i8. 



P. 87. A rage whose heat hath this condition. 

That nothing can allay 't, nothing but blood, — 
The best and dearest-valued blood of France. — Here the old 
text has allay instead of allay' t, and blood instead of best. The former 
change is Capell's, the latter Walker's. Perhaps it were as well to 
read " The blood, the dearest-valued blood of France." 



CRITICAL NOTES. I 55 



Act III., Scene 2. 

P. SS. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot ; 
Some fiery devil hovers in the sky. 

And pours down mischief. — So Theobald and Collier's second 
folio. The original, " Some ayery Devill." Burton, in his Anatomie 
of Melajicholy, says that, of the sublunary devils, " Prellus makes six 
kinds : fiery, aeriall, terrestriall, watery, and subterranean devils, be- 
sides those faieries, satyres, nymphs," &c. — " Fiery spirits or devills 
are such as commonly work by blazing starres, fire-drakes, or ignes 
fattii; likewise they counterfeit sunnes and moones, stars oftentimes, 
and sit on ship masts," &c. 

P. 88. Hubert, keep thou this boy. — So Tyrwhitt. The original 
lacks thou. 

Act III., Scene 3. 

P. 88. So shall it be ; your Grace shall stay behind. 

More strongly guarded. — Instead of More, the old text has So ; 
probably repeated by mistake from the line before. The correction is 
Lettsom's. 

P. 89. And, ere our comijtg, see thou shake the bags 

Of hoarding abbots ; set at liberty 

Imprison'd angels : the fat ribs of peace 

Must by the hungry war be fed upon. — In the original " set at 
liberty " and " imprison'd angels " change places with each other, thus 
untuning the verse badly. The correction is Walker's. The original 
also reads " Must by the hungry now be fed upon." Warburton pro- 
posed and Theobald printed war. 

P. 90- I had a thing to say, — 

But I xvillfit it with so??ie better time. — The original has tunCf 
— a frequent misprint for time. Corrected by Pope. 

P. 90. * If the fuidnight bell 

Did, with his iron tongue and brazen mouth, 
Sound one into the drozvsy ear of night. — The original reads 
" Sound on into the drowzie race of night." Shakespeare has many 



156 KING JOHN. 

clear instances of one printed on, which was in fact a common way of 
spelling one. Theobald was the first to see that here on was merely 
the old spelling of otie. The correction of race to ear is Walker's. 
Such a misprint was very easy when ear was spelt eare. See foot- 
note 4. 

P. 91. Hubert shall be your man, t' attend on you. — So the third 
folio. The original reads " your man, attend on you." 



Act III., Scene 4. 

P. 92. A whole armado <?/" convented sail 

Is scatter'' d and disjoined from fellozvship. — So Mason and Col- 
lier's second folio. The original has " convicted sail." 

P. 92. Such temperate order in so fierce a course 

Doth want example. — The old text has cause instead of course, 
which was conjectured by Theobald and printed by Hanmer. So, in 
Macbeth, v. 2, the old copies have cause misprinted for course : " He 
cannot buckle his distemper'd cause within the belt of rule." 

P. 93. And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy 

Which cannot hear a lady"* s feeble voice. 

Which scorns a mother's invocation. — So Heath and Collier's 
second folio. The old text has "a modern invocation." Heath ob- 
serves, "The epithet modern hath no meaning in this place. We 
should undoubtedly read ' And scorns a mother'' s invocation.' " Prob- 
ably it was written moders. 

P. 93. Thou art unholy to belie me so. — So Staunton. The original 
reads " Thou art holy,^'' against both sense and verse. The fourth folio 
has " not holy," which is the common reading. 

P. 95. As dim and meagre as an ague-yf/. — The original reads "an 
Agues fitte." In support of aguefit, Lettsom appositely quotes from 
King Richard II., iii. 2 : " This aguefit of fear is overblown." 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 57 

P. 96. And bitter shame hath spoWd the sweet world's taste^ 

That it yields nought but shame and bitterness. — So Pope. 
The old text, " sweet words taste." — The repetition of shame seems 
hardly right. Walker proposes " nought \)\iXgall and bitterness," and 
remarks that " something is wanting that shall class with bitterness P 

P. 97. And it cannot be, 

That, whiles warm life plays in that infanfs veins. 

The misplaced John should entertain one hour. 

One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest. — Instead of one in 

the third line, the original has an. Obvious as is the correction, it was 

not made till found in Collier's second folio. 

P. 98. No natural exhalation in the sky. 

No scape of nature, no distefnper^ d day, &c. — The old text has 
scope for scape. Corrected by Pope. Dr. Schmidt denounces the cor- 
rection as " preposterous "; and glozes the old text into meaning " no 
effect produced within the regular limits of nature." His denunciation 
would have stood a better chance, if he had spared his explanation : as 
it is, the gloss amply nonsuits the censure, and reacts in support of the 
correction. Such freaks of exegetical license can make you any thing 
out of any thing, and read you whatever sense you please into abra- 
cadabra. See foot-note 17. 

P. 99. Strong reasons make strong actions. — So the second folio. 
The first reads " strange actions." I am not sure that the change is a 
correction ; though the repetition of strong is much in Shakespeare's 
manner 

Act IV., Scene i. 

P. 100, Scene I. Northampton. — The old copies have nothing indi- 
cating the whereabout of this scene. Modern editors generally have 
settled upon Northampton, though for no reason, apparently, but that 
the course of the dialogue identifies that as the whereabout of the 
opening scene. Here the course of the dialogue merely shows the 
scene to be somewhere in England ; and perhaps Northampton may 
answer as well for the whereabout here, as in the first Act. In fact, 
however, Arthur, after falling into John's hands, was confined in the 



158 KING JOHN. 

castle of Falaise, and afterwards in that of Rouen, where he was put to 
death. Perhaps I ought to add that Staunton and the Cambridge Edi- 
tors assign " A Room in a Castle " as the place of Arthur's confinement, 
without further specifying the whereabout ; to which I can see no 
objection, except that Northampton was the ordinary place of the Court 
in John's time ; but that is not much. 

P. 100. Heat nie these irons hot ; and look you stand 

Within the arras. — The original reads "look thou stand." 
But Hubert is addressing the two Attendants, and the occurrence of 
you in the third line below shows that it should be you here. Cor- 
rected by Rowe. 

P. loi. I should be merry as the day is long. — In the original, "be 
as merry as the day." The first as overfills the verse without helping 
the sense. Pope's correction. 

P. 103. And quench his Jiery indignation 

Even in ^"/^^ water of 7nine innocence. — The original has //^w 
instead of his, and matter instead of water. The former correction is 
very obvious, as we have many instances of his and this misprinted for 
each other ; the latter is due to Mr. W. W. Williams, and is exceed- 
ingly happy. 

P. 103. But for containitig fire to harm m,ine eyes. — Both here and 
afterwards, in the line of Hubert's speech, " Well, see to live ; I will 
not touch thine eyes^'' the original has eye, — errors easily corrected 
from the context. 

P. 104. There is no jnalice burning in this coal. — The old text reads 
" no malice in this burning coal." As Arthur has just said " the fire 
is dead^'' the transposition seems but just to the sense of the passage. 

Act IV,, Scene 2, 

P. 107. And more, m,ore strong, when lesser is my fear, 

I shall endue you with. — Instead of when, the old text has 
then. Corrected by Tyrwhitt. 



CRITICAL NOTES. I 59 

P. 107. Both for myself and them, but, chief of all, 
Your safety, for the which myself and they 

Bend their best studies. — The original reads "for the which 
myself and themT Corrected by Pope. Walker notes, upon the pas- 
sage, " Is it possible that Shakespeare should have written so ungram- 
matically ? they, surely." 

P. 108. If what in rest you have, in right you hold. 

Why should your fears — which, as they say, attend 
The steps ofivrong — then move you to mew up 
Your tender kinsman. — So Pope and Collier's second folio. 
In the old text, should and then change places with each other. 

P. 109. Like heralds ^fwixt two dreadful battles sent. — So Theobald. 
The original has set for sent. As battles here means armies drawn up 
in order of battle, I do not see how heralds can be said to be set 
between them. That heralds should be sent to and fro between them, 
for the purpose of arranging a composition, is intelligible enough. 

P. III. Where is my mother'' s ear. 

That such an army could be drawn in France, 
And she not hear of it? — This is commonly printed "my 
mother's careP In the original eare has the first letter so blemished 
as to be hardly distinguishable from a c. 

P. 11 1. Under whose conduct come those pozvers of France 

That thou for truth givest out are landed here ? — The original 
has ca77ie for come. Corrected by Hanmer. 

P. 113. O, let me have no subjects enemies, &c. — So the second folio. 
The first has subject instead of subjects. 

P. 1 14. How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds 

Make ill deeds done! Hadst thou not then been by. 
This murder had not come into my mind. — The original reads 
" Make deeds ill done ? Had'st not thou beene by." The first correc- 
tion was proposed by Capell, and is made in CoUier's second folio ; the 
other is Lettsom's. Pope reads ^^ for hadst not thou." 



l60 KING JOHN. 

P. 115. Hadst thou but shook thy head, or made a pause ^ 
Or ttirn^d an eye of doubt upon my face, 

Or bid me tell my tale in express words. — So Pope and Collier's 
second folio. The old text, ''As bid me tell." 



Act IV., Scene 3. 

P. 117. Whose private with me of the Dauphin^ s love 

Is 7nuch 77iore general than these lines import. — Collier's sec- 
ond folio reads " Whose private missive,^^ and rightly, perhaps. 

P. 118. We will not line his svn-bestainkd cloak 

With our pure honotirs. — So Collier's second folio. The old 
copies have " his />^m-bestained cloake." 

P. 119. To the yet unbegotten sins of time. — The original reads 
" sinne of times.^'' Corrected by Pope. 

P. 119. Till I have set a glory to this head, 

By giving it the worship of revenge. — So Farmer and Collier's 
second folio. The old text, "a glory to this handP 

P. 123. Now happy he whose cloak «^^ cincture can 

Hold out this tempest. — The original has center instead of cinc- 
ture. An obvious error, and hardly worth noting. 

Act v.. Scene i. 

P. 123. K. John. Thus have I yielded up into your hand 
The circle of ?ny glory. 

Pand. [Giving him the crown.] Take't again 
From this my hand. — The old text reads " Take again." The 
correction is Lettsom's. Strange it should have been so long in 
coming. 

P. 125. What, shall they seek the lion in his den. 

And fright him there, and make hi?n tremble there ? 
O, let it not be said I Forage, ajid run 



CRITICAL NOTES. l6l 

To meet displeasure further from the doors. — Collier's second 
folio substitutes Courage ! for Forage^ and, I suspect, rightly ; as, at 
the close of the scene, the same speaker says, " Away, then, with good 
courage ! " The old text seems indeed to be sustained by several quo- 
tations showing that lion dind forage were apt to be used together. So 
in King Henry V., i. 2 : " Smiling to behold his lion's whelp forage in 
blood of French nobility." Also in Chapman's Revenge of Bussy 
d^A??ibois, ii. I : " And look how lions close kept, fed by hand, lose quite 
th' innative fire of spirit and greatness that lions, free, hxedi^e, foraging 
for prey ; and grow so gross, that mastiffs, curs, and mongrels, have 
spirit to cow them." Still I am not sure that the argument from these 
passages will fairly cover the case in hand ; as it is the spirit of resist- 
ance and defence, not of conquest, that Falconbridge is trying to kindle 
in John. 

P. 126. Shall we, upon the footing of our land. 

Send fair-play offers, and make compromise ? — So Collier's 
second folio. The original has " fayre-play-t^r^^'r.y," 

Act v.. Scene 2, 

P. 127. Attd, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear 
A voluntary zeal and unurged faith 

To your proceedings ; &c. — The old text reads " and an un- 
urg'd faith." 

P. 127. Should seek a plaster by condemn'd revolt. — The original has 
contemned ; upon which Heath notes as follows: "The epithet con- 
te??t7t'd hath no propriety here. We should certainly read condemned ; 
that is, which the general voice of mankind condemns, and which 
therefore Salisbury himself cannot help deploring." 

P. 128. ^«^ grapple thee unto a pagan shore. — The old copies have 
cripple. Corrected by Pope. 

P. 128. O, what a noble combat hast thou, fought 

Between compulsion and a brave respect. — In the first of these 
lines, the original omits thou, which \vas supplied in the fourth folio. 



1 62 KING JOHN. 

P. 129. Full of warm blood, of mirth, of go s sipping. — The old copies 
read "Full warm ^blood." Corrected by Heath, 

P. 1 30. Your breath first kindled the dead coals of^dx. — The oiiginal 
has " coale of warresP The correction is Capell's. 

P. 132. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite, 

And will not tetnporize with my entreaties. — Hereupon Walker 
notes as follows : " The double ending in this play grates on my ear. 
Read, surely, entreats ; the mistake was easy. The word is frequent." 
And he cites examples of entreats, substantive, from various sources ; 
also several examples of entreaties, where it is clearly an erratum for 
entreats. Still the change seems inadmissible. 

P. 132. This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troop 

The King doth smile at ; and is well prepared 
To zuhip this dwarfish zuar, these pigmy arms. — Here the 
original has, in the first line, "This un-heard sawcinesse and boyish 
Trpopes^^ and, in the third, " this Pigmy Armes.'! The first of these 
corrections, z^/z/zazW, M^as made by Theobald; the second, troop, was 
conjectured independently by Capell, Lettsom, and Jervis. The third 
error corrects itself. 

P. 133. Even at the crowing of your nation's cock, — So Collier's 
second folio. The old text, "Even at the crying of your Nations 
crow.^' See foot-note 17. 

P- ^Z3- Their thiinbles into armed gauntlets changed, 

Their neelds to lances, &c. — Instead of changed and neelds, 
the original has change and. NeedVs. The confounding of final e and 
d is very frequent, as Walker abundantly shows. For neelds, see note 
on " Is all the counsel that we two have shared," &c., vol. iii. page 100. 

Act v., Scene 4. 

P. 136. Unthread the eye of rude rebellion. 

And welcome home again discarded faith. 
Seek out King John, and fall before his feet ; 
For, zythat France be lord of this loud day. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 163 

He means to recompense the pains you take 

By cutting off your heads : thus hath he sworn^ &c. — In the 
first of these lines, the old text reads "the rude eye ^Rebellion." But 
rude should evidently be taken as an epithet of rebellion, not of eye. 
Theobald's reading of the line is, " Untread the rude way of rebellion " • 
which I am strongly moved to adopt. Collier's second folio reads 
'' Untread thQ road-way.'' Either of these might be supported by the 
line in the last speech of the scene : " We will z^/ztread the steps of 
damned flight." See, however, foot-note 3. — In the fourth line, again, 
the original has " For if the French be Lords'' The reading here given 
was suggested by Walker, who notes upon the old text as follows : 
" Palpably wrong. Did Shakespeare write ' if that France be lord^ 
&c,? or is a line lost?»e. g., 

Seek out King John, and fall before his feet ; 
[Confide not in the plighted faith of Lewis ' 
For, if,' &c." 

P. 138. For I do see the cruel pangs of death 

Right in thine eye. — Right sounds rather odd here, though 
common speech often uses it in much the same way, as in the phrases, 
" He caught me right here," " I hit him right in the eye," &c. Collier's 
second folio substitutes Bright : plausible, indeed ; but Dyce puts it 
right out of court, on the authority of an " eminent physician," Dr. 
Elliotson : " Mr. Collier tells us that Bright is to be understood ' in 
reference to the remarkable brilliancy of the eyes of many persons just 
before death ' : but if that lighting up of the eye ever occurs, it is only 
when comparative tranquility precedes dissolution, — not during ' the 
pangs of death ' ; and most assuredly it is never to be witnessed in 
those persons who, like Melun, are dying of wounds — of exhaustion 
from loss of blood, — in which case, the eye, immediately before death, 
becomes glazed and lustreless." — Capell reads " Fight in thine eye "; 
and the same occurred to me before I knew that any one had hit upon 
it. I have hardly any doubt that so we ought to read ; for the image 
or idea of death-pangs combating in the eye, and striving to quench 
its native fire, is good sense and good poetry too. Perhaps I should 
add, that Mr. A. E. Brae proposes, and Dr. Ingleby strongly approves, 
the reading, ^^ Riot in thine eye." This, besides that it makes the 
verse begin with a Dactyl, '■ — a rare thing in Shakespeare, — does not 



164 KING JOHN. 

seem to me so good in itself as Capell's Fight. Dr. Schmidt explains 
Right to mean "in a manner deserving the name"; which, to my 
thinking, has much the effect of putting the old text out of court. 



Act v.. Scene 5. 

P. 138, But stayed, and made the western welkin blush. 

When th' English measured backivard their own ground 
In faint retire. — The original reads " When English measure 
backward." Corrected by Rowe and Pope. 

P. 138. And wound our tattering colours clearly up. — The original 
has " And woofi'd our totfring colours." But tottering, it appears, is 
but an old spelling of tattering. See foot-note i. — Much question 
has been made about clearly here ; whether it be the right word, and, 
if so, in what sense it is to be taken, neatly or entirely. Capell pro- 
posed cheerly, and Collier's second folio substitutes closely. The Cam- 
bridge Editors propose clea^ily in the sense of neatly, and as rightly 
antithetical to tattering. 

Act v.. Scene 6. 

P. 139. Hub. Whafs that to thee? 

Bast. Why may not I demand 

Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine ? 

Hubert, I think. — The original prints all this as Hubert's 
speech, except " Hubert, I think," to which it prefixes " BastP The 
arrangement in the text is Dyce's, who notes upon it as follows : 
" Here I adopt, as absolutely necessary, a portion of the new distri- 
bution of the speeches at the commencement of this scene which was 
recommended to me by Mr. W. W. Lloyd." 



P. 140. Unkind rei7iembrance ! thou and eyeless night 

Have done vie sha77ie. — So Theobald and Collier's second folio. 
The original, "thou and etidles night." See foot-note 4. 



CRITICAL NOTES. 1 65 



Act v., Scene 7. 

P. 142. Death, having prey d upon the outward parts. 

Leaves them insensible ; and his siege is now 

Against the mind. — The original has invisible for insensible. 
Corrected by Hanmer. The original also has winde for mind ; an 
error that corrects itself. 

P. 142, / am the cygnet to this pale faint swan. — For cygnet \}[^q. 
old text has Symet. Corrected by Rowe. 

P. 145. / have a kind soul that would give you thanks. — The old 
copies omit you, which is necessary alike to sense and metre. 



a 



